Dust, Ashes and Echoes
by Singh
Summary: A mysterious race begins to plague the Alpha Quadrant, led by an insane Admiral. What strange purpose do they have here? Will the Great Destroyers be stopped? Or will the Federation crumble...leaving behind only dust, ashes and echoes?
1. Prologue: The Fall of Valhalla

_**Dust, Ashes and Echoes**_

_**Prologue: The Fall of Valhalla**_

Villaires system was normally a quiet corner of the galaxy; far away from the internal core of the federation and pretty much at the edge of the Alpha Quadrant. The nearest allied star system was a week away at even maximum warp while the closest system in the opposite direction was several months away. Although long been considered a jump-off point for most exploration ventures, the Colony was only just self-sufficient, with no additional profit or industrial capacity capable from the meager resources present. While this didn't make it a costly planet to upkeep, neither did it give the Federation or any other power any strategic value in the wars. This, for the most part, had largely allowed it to remain disconnected from most of the problems that had plagued the Alpha Quadrant to date. Despite understanding the possible calamity, both the Borg invasion to the Dominion wars had always been nothing more than a distant affair for its citizens, who focused more on keeping the colony running than anything else.

This generally allowed the system's inhabitants to live somewhat peacefully, with each citizen generally getting a fair share of resources. It was, in essence, a safe haven of sorts, with the only problem being the occasional pirate or rogue seeking shelter – both of which were easily dealt with, by the ships stationed at Jessuis Station. The Federation had set up a star base here around sixty years ago, when the colony had originally been set up. It had acted for a long time as a hub for those headed down to the colony, as well as an important repair and re-supply facility for most Federation expeditions into the Beta Quadrant.

An old design, Jessuis station was still a steadfast structure; having withstood the decay that usually came with time, age and many a pirate attack, its presence had already outlived most of the original crew that had first manned it. Stationed onboard was a small Peacekeeping force, consisting of two militarized freighters – the _Public Agenda _and the _Lifeless Privateer_ – a single decommissioned (and appropriately refitted) Oberth Class starship, the _Immutable Guardian_, and the most recent addition: the _USS Glory,_ a refitted Constellation class Starship. Although most of the ships were old, they were enough to counter most of the threats out in these parts. In addition to this, the stations had a significant number of weapons to back them up as well, allowing it to protect the Villaires IV colony effectively. Their presence here brought about a feeling of peace and security that many of the inner colonies lacked, allowing most of the station's members to be easy-going and somewhat relaxed.

_And yet…despite knowing all of this…why do I get a feeling of dread?_

Commodore Jas thought to himself for the hundredth time today, as he looked out the portal, and onto the colony below. The station was now facing the planet's dark side, allowing a rich view of the city lights below. The view of the city below was partially by his reflection in the window.

At nearly sixty, the Commodore was approaching retirement age, and it showed in the many wrinkles and scars along his face. He had been assigned to the station for the last twenty years now. But despite facing down many a pirate and even a Romulan warship once, none of it was similar to what he was experiencing now. Ever since he had woken up several hours ago, he had been suffering from an immense feeling of fear and dread of what was to come today. He had spent all morning walking the station, and personally checking if everything was all right – he had even done a quick scouting of the system in a runabout earlier, to make sure everything was secure. Although everything had been clear, Jas' instincts were still not at rest.

There was something absolutely _wrong_ about today. He couldn't explain it, but all of his instincts had been on red alert all day long. Jas had checked the subspace comms, and as far as he knew there really wasn't any war on right now. Sure, there was always the threat of a Borg invasion, but with the USS Voyager's return, it had been shown that the Borg wouldn't be a threat for some time to come. But then what? More pirates? Rogues? The _Jolly Roger_ had been spotted near Xevenya recently – but it was on an outbound vector to Klingon space, and was nowhere near here.

Jas racked his mind, trying to figure out what was causing this feeling. His thoughts were interrupted, however, as the door chimed behind him.

"Come in." he said, absent-mindedly. He didn't pay attention as a Vulcan, dressed in a Starfleet medical uniform, quietly entered the room and stood at attention behind the Commodore. The pips on the Vulcan's uniform indicated the rank of a Commander. Jas had known the doctor since his assignment on the USS _Wayfarer_ nearly thirty years ago. Although they had been split up several years ago, Jas had been somewhat pleasantly surprised when the latter had been re-assigned to his station just a year ago.

However, today, it made little difference. Not even the presence of Sevek seemed to calm him down a bit; as the Commander seemed to no doubt observe, or note.

"Commodore." Sevek spoke, his tone was low and emotionless, as much as could be expected from a Vulcan.

"Did Sasha send you here, Sevek?" Jas asked, not looking back from the window. Sevek knew he was talking about the first officer.

"She didn't need to." Was the only reply.

Jas sighed, and looked down, closing his eyes. He shook his head.

"Something's wrong, Sevek. Something's _dead_ wrong. I can't put my finger on it…but I've just got a bad feeling...a _very_ bad feeling."

Sevek didn't say anything. Rather, he seemed to take out a tricorder from somewhere, and then scanned Jas. He analyzed the results for a few seconds, before replying a moment later.

"Your blood pressure _is_ much higher than normal, Commodore, but I read nothing else wrong with your baseline functions."

Sevek put away the tricorder before continuing.

"However, I have long since learned that human instinct acts in many mysterious ways…although I am no Psychologist, perhaps talking about it would be helpful, instead."

Jas didn't smile. Rather, he considered what to reply. He still couldn't place the feeling exactly. All he knew that it was of dread; as if a major storm was on the horizon, and he was straight in its path.

"I don't know what it is, Sevek…I have this feeling of dread…as if something's coming. Something big…and we're right in the middle of its path."

"Curious…was this…'feeling' the basis of your scouting trip in the runabout earlier?"

Sevek asked in reply, cocking his head to one side, and raising an eyebrow.

Jas didn't look back, but only nodded in reply.

"And I assume, this would also be the reason that you deployed Gamma Wing to continue scouting out the edges of the system?"

Jas nodded again. However, something else got his attention. Looking out of the window…he saw something.

It was a blue vortex of sorts…swirling…moving. It was barely at the edge of his vision…but as he focused…it seemed to come closer. At first, he could just see it rotating quickly, but as it came closer…he saw storms, surging and boiling away within it. It was not a complete shade of blue – but rather, a combination of blue and white. Wondering what it was, he spoke out to Sevek, hoping to get the Commander's assistance on the matter.

"Sevek. Come see this…"

There was no reply, and neither did Sevek's reflection seem to react in the mirror. Jas frowned, and turned around.

"Sevek?" He asked, and was about to continue when, suddenly…Sevek disappeared.

Or rather, he turned to dust and sand, vanishing as an invisible wind blew the ashes away into nothingness. Jas took a step back in shock and horror; unsure of what to say or do. He blinked. This _had_ to be his mind playing tricks on him…it simply _had_ to.

And then, when his eyes opened, he was no longer in his quarters…in fact, he was no longer on Jessuis Station. He was now in some sort of alien ship…where the walls of his ready room used to be was now a lattice of pipes and blood-red structures all around him. The walls seemed to flow a bit, as if alive, but it couldn't be that – despite the blood-like appearance, it looked too much like machinery…but it was machinery like Jas had never seen before, and just the sight of it brought fear to his mind.

But nothing was more frightening than the creature standing in front of him now. It was large; massively so. It towered over him and was far, far wider that most beings he'd seen. It did not remotely resemble any humanoid creature and had an exo-skeleton, much like that of an insect, and was a dark grey color. But yet, this clearly was no insect…this was something far more…_sinister_. The creature had five arms, three below and two to either side of the rear that could either move up or below its carapace. It had a visual array of five eyes arranged in a downwards 'v' formation. Its left shoulder was extended out, and what he could only guess at being a device or weapon of some sort seemed to be mounted _in_ it.

The creature looked at him, but did not move. But for the few seconds that it stared at him, Jas would have easily pissed in his pants, had it not been for his self-control and curiosity. It overcame his fear, in a sense. He was about to say something, anything, really, when something interrupted him.

Or rather, _someone._

He recognized it as a human form as it walked out from behind the creature. The form was completely in shadow and Jas could barely make out any features, apart from the fact that the form seemed to be wearing a uniform of some kind. But it belonged to no faction that Jas recognized. The other incredibly odd and unnerving thing was the fact that the person did not seem to walk, as much as he did simply _float_ past the larger creature. The form didn't move much and only seemed to turn like a statue as it came about to face him.

Finally, it came into the small circle of light. But just before the form's face could be revealed, Jas blinked, and the entire world disappeared.

"Sir? Are you all right?"

Jas opened his eyes to once again view the planet as it slowly rotated below him.

_What did I just see?_ he thought, quietly considering what he had just said. He brought a hand up to his head, trying to clear his mind. He was loosing it…most definitely so. There was absolutely no sign of the blue vortex he had seen earlier, or of any indication that what he had seen had just happened

"Yes, Sevek?" Jas asked. He definitely was going to need a physical or something. He was going crazy. Yes, that _had_ to be it.

"I asked if you would like that we deploy another wing of fighters, to put your mind at rest. However, you seemed…distracted, and did not respond."

Jas shook his head and turned around to face Sevek, who was this time still standing there, and had a somewhat concerned look on his face.

"Send another wing out…in fact, make it two wings. And Sevek, I think you need to check my head out in sickbay – I fear I may be suffering fr-"

Before he could finish the sentence, however, the lights dimmed and turned yellow. The alert sirens came out over the intercom as the lights pulsated in a steady rhythm. His comm. Badge beeped as Captain Sasha's voice came through.

"Commodore Jas, we need you on the bridge. We've got a situation developing."

Jas only looked at Sevek for a second before nodding. He headed for the exit, his sense of dread only escalating with each step.

A few seconds later, they were out on the bridge. Captain Sasha's lithe form was towards one of the side consoles, where she then motioned for both of them to come. They were at her side a moment later. She stepped back and motioned for them to take a look at the monitor as she spoke.

"Sir, we've got a problem. Station's sensors picked up a large explosion at the edge of the system, consistent in energy levels to the detonation of a warp-core. The location was somewhat close to where Gamma wing's patrol was supposed to be."

The knot in Jas's stomach grew tighter as she spoke and as he saw the data coming in. Now not only did the feeling of dread grow, but a wave of guilt racked him as well. Because of him, three pilots had probably died out there.

"Any signal from Gamma wing yet?" he asked, hoping for some consolation from this.

Sasha only shook her head. "Negative. We lost contact with them around a minute before we detected the explosion. We thought it was equipment failure, but this explosion confirms it wasn't. Subspace sensors began to fluctuate, and we've got something that's causing our communications equipment to falter. It might be jamming, but the effect is too random to look like it's own purpose." Sasha stopped, interrupted as something started to flash on the display.

"Wait – I've got a transponder signal and sensor ghost – appears to be a runabout!"

"Can you focus the sensors? Try and get a lock on him." Jas asked.

Sasha only shook her head in reply.

"Negative, sir. I can focus the sensors and get a visual and maybe some audio, but that's about it. On screen now."

The group looked up at the screen, which changed to show the form of a Danube Runabout. Or at least, a heavily damaged one. Scorch marks littered the runabout's form, and it left behind a massive trail of smoke and fire from the port nacelle. It was hull breached in the upper-rear quadrant, where some sort of weapon had created a gaping hole that entered from the port side, and exited from the top. The flicker and grid-like structure of an emergency force field could be seen as it barely contained the atmosphere as the runabout swung from side to side, as if trying to dodge and imaginary enemy and gunfire.

The station's speakers crackled and sparked as a signal came through from the runabout. The voice of a very frightened pilot came through, his tone past panic already. The fear in the pilot's voice was very apparent, and seemed to strike Jas to his core. He listened and cold easily feel it as he watched the fighter swerve on the screen.

"_Oh God…their following me! Mayday, this is Lieutenant Noris, Jessuis Patrol, Wing Gamma, Zero-three! Reporting taking heavy damage, requesting immediate fighter cover and rescue, come in anybody!" _

Sasha leapt onto the task without Jas having to order her. The knot in his stomach simply tightened and he simply ignored her as she spoke.

"Hold on, I'm trying to establish two way communications over the interference!"

"_Mayday! Requesting Immediate assistance! **Anyone, please!**"_

"Wait, I've got it! Channel open now!" Sasha said, and then she began to speak over the channel. Jas didn't stop her. Instead, he was more focused on the screen and the fighter, and concentrating on that feeling again.

"Barely receiving you Gamma Three, this is Jessuis station responding, what is your situation?"

There was some relief in the pilot's voice as he replied, but the fear remained, and instead, it seemed to _grow_ somehow.

"_Oh thank god! Our wing was ambushed, we didn't have a chance – I'm sure their tracking me!"_

Sasha frowned, and looked over to Jas, who just focused on the screen. She continued talking to the pilot, obviously annoyed not only at the pilot, but the Commodore's lack of action as well.

"Calm down sir, who attacked you. Was it pirates?"

"_Pirates were killed too, they fought at everyone!"_

Suddenly, as Jas looked on at the runabout, his vision seemed to _shift_ somehow. The runabout, the screen and indeed everyone seemed to be bathed in a hue of blood-red. The runabout was more intact, but in the middle of some maneuvers. He saw it dive, twist and turn as energy bolts raced passed it, lighting up the craft's shields.

Then he blinked, and the view returned to normal. Even as Sasha replied back, he knew in the pit of his stomach that the pilot wasn't referring to normal pirates at all.s

"Pilot, you have to calm down. You were attacked by Pirates, is that true?"

"**NO!"** The pilot shouted back his voice and tone shifting further into panic and forcing a wince from those in the bridge with sensitive hearing. He continued, at a slightly softer – but no less panicked – tone _"We were just in skirmish with a few pirate fighters when they came out of nowhere and killed everyone!"_

Sasha just threw up her hands in a fit of annoyance; obviously angered at the pilot's vagueness and the Commodore's inaction.

"**Who** came out of nowhere, pilot?"

The pilot's voice was softer this time...but the fear…the way that he spoke. It froze Jas's blood as he heard it. There was no match for such fear…except if one were being hunted.

"_I…I don't know. They weren't Federation…or Klingon. Oh God…they had these death black ships and they flew like –"_

"Pi…Pilot, Pilot!" Sasha tried to interrupt.

"_Their weapons were too much, they wasted everyone!" _the pilot went on, ignoring whatever Sasha was saying and just speaking over her voice.

Once more, the view screen changed, only to be bathed in blood. This time, Jas saw different ships…a small fighter, shaped like a 'U', with energy blasts coming out of the tips and a missile launcher slotted underneath the main torso. It weaved and moved side to side, following the runabout. Each shot grazed by the shields, before the next two landed. One burnt out the shields altogether, while the next landed straight on the starboard nacelle, lighting it up with a massive explosion.

Then, just as soon as it had appeared, the vision disappeared once more. Jas's grip tightened on the console as his feeling of dread and fear grew like never before.

"Pilot, sit tight, we're sending a recovery craft right no-"

"**_SEND FIGHTERS!"_** The pilot screamed, cutting Sasha off once more. "_I…I know their following me, send everything you have now!"_

"Pilot, I don't have anyone else on scope, your home free, it's going to be all right."

Jas looked over to Sasha's console to see several symbols. One represented the fighter, and there were now three new ones that blinked for a short period, representing the craft that Sasha had just deployed to rescue the fighter. Even as Sasha spoke, Jas knew that she was wrong. Things weren't going to be all right…not one bit.

"_**No it isn't!** You don't understand, you weren't there!"_ The pilot continued, now screaming at the top of his lungs. The fear…it was enough to even unnerve Sevek as Jas glanced to him. But as he looked back at the viewsceen, it once again went blood-read, and more of the fighters came, this time firing at the runabout. A beam came out of somewhere, and punched right through the hull, causing a massive explosion as plasma and air vented out before the emergency force fields could come online. Then, as it went back to normal, Jas heard the pilot's tone come down a bit as he continued. His own voice seemed to echo the pilot's as he spoke softly, remembering what had happened in the room earlier.

"_I can feel them following me…"_

Then, suddenly, on the view screen several blue vortexes opened up behind the fighter. They were completely identical to the one that Jas had seen earlier as they suddenly grew in size. Four of the strange fighters he had seen just a few seconds before emerged out of the vortexes, chasing the runabout.

And then…_another_ appeared. But this was not like any of the others; for it was far larger…no…_massively_ larger. As the measurements came on the screen, Jas realized with horror and fear that the new one was several kilometers across, at the least. It appeared right in front of the pilot, who was now screaming hysterically at the top of his lungs.

"**_Oh my god! I'm dead! We're all dead!"_**

"Picking up unknown jump signatures…" Sasha said, her voice holding a bit of awe as she saw the vortex forming.

"Scramble the fighters!"

Jas didn't move, didn't respond as Sasha called out to move to red alert. Instead, he was rooted into his spot in terror as the pilot continued to shout as the triangular prow of a massive ship began to slowly emerge from the blue-white vortex.

**_It's too late, oh God!_**

And then, as he looked onto the screen, the same form he had seen earlier now came before him, standing on his bridge and looking him right in the eye. He didn't notice the face, only the eyes and the stare behind them.

The fighter on the screen was hit just then by several energy bolts, and its warp core gave out, causing it to explode in a flash as the pilot's last, dying screams joined that of Commodore Jas's.

_**Chapter 2**_

_**The Prelude to Disaster**_


	2. Chapter 1: The Prelude to Disaster

_**Chapter 1**_

_**The Prelude to Disaster**_

**_5th December, 2378_**

**_USS Persistence,_**

**_En-route to Xevenya._**

The corridors was bright, clean and filled with cheerful crewmen and women as it was everyday, and had been for the past month or so. It was a peace and neatness that Captain Vales was thankful for, especially when he remembered back to what he had witnessed during the Dominion War. He sighed, remembering back to those days…and then subsequently pushed it aside.

A man of medium build, any person would have probably mistake Captain Vale for a slightly more junior officer simply because of how young he looked. His brown hair was cut short and neat, covering only a small part of the smooth, broad forehead. Vale's eyes were a normal brown in color, but shone with an intelligence that belied his apparent age. A long, thin nose along with a square jaw and chin completed the face, giving him a seeming toughness of someone off the street, as opposed to a Federation Captain.

It was this toughness that had allowed Vales to survive through the Dominion war as a young ensign, and then subsequently rise up the ranks to reach where he was now. Captain of his own ship…he hadn't actually believed it until he had been given the post a month ago. He'd been part of Starfleet for what? 23 years now, and they _finally_ gave him a command of his own, despite having reached the rank of Captain almost a year ago. At the relatively middle age of around 44, most others would be considering having a quiet or peaceful end to their career, probably as a commodore or rear admiral down at Starfleet HQ…but for Vales, things had just started looking up.

_About bloody time too._ Vales thought as he reached the end of the crew quarters deck. The turbo lift doors silently opened, and then closed after he entered it.

"Flight Deck 1."

The computer only beeped in acknowledgement to the order, and began to descend. This wasn't just _any_ ship, he had been given command of, however. The _Persistance_ was a semi-new ship designated as the _Stormchaser_ class, which had just rolled out of production…or refit, actually. The original hull had based on that of a Galaxy class vessel…but their were several key changes. The most important and probably most prominent were the clearing out of a majority of the quarters, and re-conversion of these spaces to flight decks. The original Galaxy class had had a few shuttle bays – but now these had been reconverted as well, giving the _Persistance _a total of six flight decks – four on the saucer, and another two on the star drive section. The exits for the flight decks were arranged in a triangle formation on the upper side of the saucer section, with one point forward and two back. The last one was located below and pointed forwards as well. The Star drive section ones were simple enough as well; one forwards and one backwards.

These flight decks and refits had been part of Starfleet's experimental expansion in seeing how feasible fighter and carrier-type combat would be. The traditional approach of capital ships was still preferred due to sheer durability and weaponry, of course, but the numbers and strike capabilities given by fighters and bombers was enticing – especially considering the new technology proven by the Delta Flyer that _Voyager_ had brought back. All new classes of military fighters had been created, based on its components and systems over the past year, and all of those produced so far had been placed upon the only three carrier classes in the fleet – the _Stormchaser,_ the _Persistance_ and the _Foundation_.

These new classes ranged from small interceptors, to heavy fighters, Strike bombers and ultra-heavy bombers. All-new payloads and torpedoes had been specialized expressly for them, as had been a whole-new set of crew that had never really been needed before…as was evident by the scene that presented itself to Vales as the doors opened.

"_Flight Deck One."_ the computer chimed.

Flight Deck One (commonly referred to as FD1) was the top-side forward deck. It actually wasn't exactly a 'deck' as it was _three_. At three decks tall, FD1 was bustling with activity. Flight crews moved around the entire floor, running diagnostics, maintenance or tweaks on the varied kinds of fighters here. The inside of the deck nearest to the force field to space was completely clear acting as a small runway of sorts for incoming or outgoing fighters. All along FD1's ceiling were rails upon which several mechanical cranes had been placed. They had been chosen over anti-grav systems out of sheer redundancy in a battle situation, as opposed to efficiency. These cranes ran across the rails with a rather quick speed, lifting fighters and bombers off the runway and onto the many berths split into three levels and running all along the walls in a large 'U' like formation. Vales was to the left side of this, with the back of FD1 being to his right, and the force field holding in the air from the vacuum of space to his left. Ordinance, spare parts, fuel containers and other similar items lay in each berth, ready to either re supply or repair the ship that came in. Some berths were larger than others, to accommodate for the larger bombers…while yet others had special markings and symbols to them…as if reserved for a particular group, or group of fighters.

_That would be the squadrons._ Vales thought to himself. The _Persistence_ was home to a total of 6 squadrons – probably the first few dedicated fighter squadrons in all of Starfleet, actually. Vales re-counted the squadrons and tied them to the face of each squadron leader he knew. It was a daily ritual of his, in a sense. As was walking the flight decks, which he did now as, he stepped out of the turbo lift. There was a ramp way that led all around the deck, with several ladders and well-placed elevators allowing access up or down each level. The place he was headed for was at the top level, on the opposite wall. It was the flight control center that overlooked all of FD1, coordinating all the launches and landings that were going on.

Despite the fact that they weren't at war or any hostile action at the moment, Vales had ordered repeated drills to take place, if only to give his pilots something to do, as opposed to wrecking Ten-Forward…or worse - playing with ordinance.

The pilots that had been chosen to fly the fighters had been chosen from Starfleet's finest caliber. Young men and women, humanoid and non-humanoid alike, each one had a reputation for being crack pilots of their starships…yet this had remained mostly useless, considering the fact that flying a starship was a far, far different venture than flying one these fighters. The top of them of course, had been chosen to lead the squadron. Famous names like Lt. Paris had been amongst the first pilots, and had gotten a place on the _Stormchaser_ just a month back.

Vales started to recount his squadron leaders, as he walked the ramp-way and up the ladder.

The first and probably the finest of all the pilots here was Commander Jessuis 'Kamikaze' McCumbry, leader of the 21st _Suicide Kings_ Interceptor squadron. They primarily flew the _Hellfire_ interceptors, designed to chase down enemy bombers (or smaller capital craft) as well as to perform precision strikes against larger targets – even into low warp, if need be. Specialized with heavy forward Phaser and Torpedo array, they were capable of bringing massive firepower to bear in a single precision strike – however, unlike most other fighters, they weren't very suited for long-term combat. A somewhat strict person, McCumbry had a habit of being all business when it came to combat. Off-duty, he was pretty much the same….except when he got drunk. Vales remembered his CVS – the man had apparently gotten arrested and reprimanded _thrice_ for drunk and disorderly conduct. However, he had somehow managed to squirm through with only light duties or a minor pay cut or two. This was probably due to his reputation. He had piloted one of the Akira class vessels first during the Dominion war and then when the Borg had attacked Earth. His vessel had been instrumental in the final thrust captain Picard and the _Enterprise _had made to stop the cube – and which had succeeded. Having proven his mettle, he was the obvious candidate for being the overall squadron commander onboard. McCumbry's wing consisted of around four others, total. The name given to their squadron was a rather…dubious one, to say the least. The symbol of a king of spades, from an old earth card deck, adorned the walls of their berths, a rather accurate portrayal of their roles. His wing was one which Vales could count on for a suicide mission…although onboard this ship, almost every other wing would be willing to do the same.

The next and most definitely almost as good was Lt. Commander Ne'Zr's wing. Vales still couldn't get the pronunciation of the arachnid's name right, but instead sufficed with the nick-name her colleagues had given her – 'Red Target' or RT, for short. She belonged to a relatively new species to the federation – known only as the Korak. They were distinctively identifiable by their red exoskeletons, which gave them a resemblance to large lady-bugs, minus the spots. Although membership was still new, their navy frequently used fighters and bombers as well as carrier tactics. As such, RT had been posted onto the _Persistance _as one of the squadron leaders, while yet another Korak ace was the overall squadron commander on the _Foundation._ RT headed up the 22nd _Mad Bombers_ - an aptly accurate name, actually, considering not just the nature of the craft they flew, but the pilots as well. RT's crafts of choice were the _Ragnarok_ and _Swift_ bombers, both relatively new designs with separate purposes.

Vale's breathing increased a bit as he got off the ladder at the second deck. He turned around, and came face-to-face with one of the fighters he had been thinking about. The somewhat blocky design of the Ragnarok had a certain degree of elegance to it, mostly because of the swept-back wings which were drawn up at ninety degrees at their edges. There was a slight bulge to the top and bottom of the rear, where the warp nacelles and systems were located. To either side of the front cockpit, the torpedo launchers and ordinance storage facilities had been placed, with the exit ports being hidden behind several long slats that could be withdrawn, allowing the bomber to fire its deadly payload at any target. The Ragnarok was a heavy bomber, with a specially built rack system that allowed it to fire a multitude of payloads at medium-close range, at up to six torpedoes or missiles at a time. Unlike the other fighters, the Ragnarok was capable of carrying full-fledged regular torpedoes alongside its regular armament. However, Vales knew that special warheads had been prepared just for use by these bombers – each with a devastating capacity at least 4-5 times that of a regular quantum torpedo – in terms of raw energy output, at least. The launchers could fire up to six torpedoes at once, and in any type of spread, while the ordinance capacity was huge. To further enhance this, a special 'lighter' version of ablative armor had been added to the surface to give the bomber a toughness that would allow it to deliver its payloads.

On the side of the hull, Vales could see the squadron symbol. It was a picture of an old earth weapon – an atomic bomb, to be precise. The bomb was wrapped around in what appeared to be a straightjacket from the looks of it. _Most suitably fitting._ Vales thought to himself. He continued to walk down the ramp, heading to the next ladder.

The next squadron was probably the most unusual. It wasn't an interceptor or bomber squadron, but rather multi-role, with primary missions being long-range recon and support. It headed by an Andorian, a Lt. Commander Bishota. Bishota had a particularly strange history; one that Vale had taken note to study extensively. Still, despite his attempts to understand it, its mysteries had troubled him deeply. Yet, still, he had opted to keep Bishota's experience and skills. Like McCumbry, she had experience in the Dominion war – however, it was rather different. Her aid had come not as a Starfleet officer….but as a mercenary. More often than not, her ex-company had employed the use of fighter tactics with the small craft they had, something which had propelled her into a pilot's line and field once she had successfully entered and then passed Starfleet academy after the Dominion War. The only reason she was here was at the recommendation of a half-dozen captains, including even Major Kira from DS9.

Bishota headed the 23rd _Silver Scythes_, a squadron which specialized in the _Night watcher_ class of stealth fighters. Although the federation couldn't use full cloaks, the ships more often than not used different types of stealth modules, including experimental sensor jammers and holographic equipment to disguise external appearances. It was the ultimate small craft when it came doing long-range recon, especially into potentially hostile territory too hot to risk the carrier in. The squadron truly was multi-role, however, and more often than not could be seen supporting the others in fighters, bombers or even Interceptors. Although the pilots did specialize in varying fields, every pilot was capable of flying any other craft should the need arise – however, limited fighter supply meant that it was more efficient to specialize, as then the pilots would more than likely keep them up in the air longer.

Vales reached the next ladder up. However, rather than climb it, he stepped aside and made way as a crewman slowly climbed down it.

The next squadron was led by not one person…but millions of them. At least, that was what Vales had understood of Marshinian physiology. The being was about as alien as one could possibly get; a collection of billions of semi-sentient micro-organisms that collected together to form a large super-organism housed in a very, very strong exo-skeletal structure. It was a hive mind that rivaled the processing power of most Federation computers – and it was all located within a five foot tall and three foot wide semi-metallic carapace that looked more like an old-earth tank than it did a living being. The Marshinians had been a long time Federation member; their planet proving to be a good source of Dilithium, and their race friendly enough to trade with most others. How they exactly operated was a mystery to Vales, but what he did know was that the collection of beings that had joined and then gone through Starfleet designated itself as 'Trix'. The squadron Trix leaded were the 24th _Star Childs_. A primarily Fighter squadron, the _Star Childs_ were meant to deal with other threats of similar size and/or nature, as well as to assist the carrier's assault against larger ships. They flew the _Sojourn_ class fighter, which packed enough of a punch to be capable of making them a distraction, while at the same time having enough maneuverability and speed to not make them sitting ducks. Trix had been chosen to lead it – simply because unlike the others, it did not require an interface with which to control the fighter, and instead flew it like an extension of its own mind.

There were just two more squadrons to go, which Vales continued to recount as he nodded at the crewman and then climbed up the ladder.

The 25th _Deadly Reapers_ was a specialized heavy assault squadron. They flew _Sojourn_ fighters, _Swift_ bombers and a specialized craft made especially for their roles – the _Maahes_ Heavy Assault Gunship. The _Maahes_/i/ was a semi-bomber, semi-fighter whose main armaments were the massive array of phasers all over the ship and a single torpedo turret, allowing it to engage multiple fighter targets, or one or two frigates at a time. However this comes at the cost of having a crew of five (1 pilot, 3 gunners, 1 support), and also being innately expensive to keep running for any reasonable amount of time. It was also somewhat limited in its warp capacity due to an experimental power core; with a maximum speed of Warp 2.4 – just a little more than half of the other fighters. The huge hull was similar in size to the Ragnarok class, if a little bigger; meaning that only a select few of these gun ships could be actually carried onboard. There were actually just four of them onboard, and Starfleet Command was more interested in seeing if they were worth the resources before it made anymore. The squadron was headed by Lt. Ayer, probably the youngest pilot onboard. A Bolian, he had been chosen partially because of his skill, and partially because he had helped to design the Gun Ship in the first place.

Getting off the ladder, Vales looked from side to side. The uppermost floor was empty…which was somewhat odd, actually. He checked the time…

_Nope…its daytime shift, for sure._ It was perfectly on time…normally, there should have been people working at around this time. At the very least had there been no work people would be sitting around and talking. Yet as Vales looked on he observed that everything had been stacked neatly and efficiently, and there was not a soul about.

Then he heard the sound of a door sliding open towards his right side. Turning around, Vales saw several people come out of the Flight Control Center. They were various uniforms colors, but most of them he recognized as flight support attendants or mechanics. He breathed a sigh of relief and realized that it was probably just an overall briefing by Flight Chief Su'Vek. Vales remembered that the flight chief had wanted to organize one soon, and had probably just shifted it forward to today.

He glanced at the nearby fighter berth for a second, noting the squadron insignia on it. It was a simple one; of just a hammer and spanner, placed in an 'x' formation much akin to the soviet banner. This was the last squadron on the _Persistance_ for the moment – the 26th _Workmen._ Theirs was a rather special squadron, with no actual 'leader' – at least, no leader that was a true pilot. The _Workmen_ were the true support squadron onboard, piloting an all-new engineering rig that allowed them to repair and rearm the new fighters and bombers out in the midst of combat. The new rigs were almost as large as the gun ships onboard, and were simply called as the _Rescue _class. As the name implied, these craft were also capable of making last-ditch and automatic rescues, pulling out pilots whose fighters had gone critical. To survive on the battlefield, they had been given heavy armor and shielding, almost as strong as small starship class. Two rapid-fire micro-torpedo turrets protected them against aggressors, while they also had a small tractor beam with which to tow off damaged fighters. They were slow and unwieldy and took a lot of space on the hangar decks, meaning that their numbers were somewhat limited as well. Again, Starfleet HQ was doing trial runs, so if it did indeed prove successful, more numbers would be granted. The Squadron was officially 'run' by the ship's Chief Engineer, Lt. Commander Tolrath, but since there were just two of them, Tolrath had let the two pilots and their crews run mostly independently, with the occasional check to make sure everything was in order. The two pilots and the four other crew that ran the show got along well together, so Vales had left it mostly as it was.

Vales completed the count just as he reached the door, which slid open quietly, revealing the flight control center. It was a rather large room, with an large window that overviewed the deck to one side. All along this wall and the others were control consoles and displays, showing the status of the ships currently in the berth, and those coming in for landing or taking off.

An inner 'ring' was in the situated in the middle of the room, inside of which Su'Vek form stood. The tall Vulcan was addressing a few of the other flight chiefs when he noticed the captain come in.

"Captain on the deck." He said, calmly. The chiefs around him turned around and stood at attention as the Vales simply held a hand up and nodded.

"As you were…just passing through the morning rounds."

"Indeed, sir." Su'Vek replied, obviously non too pleased at the interruption. Keeping that in mind, Vales just walked around the gathered men as they went about their business, and then exited through the door at the other side. He walked out of the flight deck, and was immediately in a small junction. To his left was the mess hall, while to his right was a turbo lift that headed straight for the bridge. Vales was about to turn right, when his stomach growled, protesting his move.

_Damn…nearly forgot breakfast again._ Vales cursed. He checked the time again. _Still a half hour to go…_ it was still early, so he turned to the left, and began walking towards the mess hall. Although he could have just replicated a meal in his ready room, the mess hall cooked real food for the crew. It wasn't necessary, of course, but he'd long since discovered that the wonders a few home-cooked meals did to morale, as well as allow for socializing in general.

At this point, Vales was close enough that he could just smell the aroma of the food coming from the mess…a mixture of spices, meat and vegetables, that tantalized the senses, promising a real treat for those who would stay to indulge themselve. Vale's pace quickened, moving down the corridor and approaching the doors as fast as he could, without looking like he was deliberately running.

Four steps…three steps….two more. The doors had opened now and with a final step, Vales would be inside. As the doors opened, however, Vales heard a very, very different noise than he expected.

His comm. Badge chirped, distracting Vales and nearly causing him to bump into a crewman that was about to exit. Sighing, he stopped outside the door and tapped the badge. _This had better be important._

"_Bridge to Captain Vales."_ a female voice spoke through. Vales immediately recognized it as his first officer, Commander Sandra.

"Vales here…" he said, suppressing a sigh.

"_Sorry to disturb you captain, but you have a priority message coming in from Admiral Dethuris. He has new orders for us, but wishes to speak to you personally."_

Vales cursed internally. Admiral Dethuris? Now this was odd. Normally, the Admiral just sent them their orders as-is, which meant that this had to be important. Sighing internally, he backed off from the mess hall doors, allowing them to close. Turning around, he jogged back to the turbolift as he replied calmly.

"I'll take it in the ready room, coming up now."

Vales then cut the channel. What could be the problem now? His current orders were to make way to Xevenya, to allow for re-supply, and picking up a few important passengers and new crew. Although it was out of the way, they had been closest to the sector when the need had come in. Still, this place was supposed to be quiet – what could have gone wrong that required them to change orders from an Admiral?

_Guess I'll find out._ Vales thought. The doors closed and he gave his destination. Ten seconds later, he was at the bridge. He didn't spend any time greeting the crew, and instead went straight to the ready room. They all understood his expression and the situation – it was not worthwhile keeping an Admiral waiting – especially one like Dethuris.

Once he had entered and settled down into the room, Vales opened the channel. The face of Admiral Dethuris appeared on the display screen. A relatively old man, the Admiral wasn't a very pleasant person to deal with; as was made clear by his currently dour expression. He spoke first, cutting off Vales before he could say a word.

"Captain Vales, I'll make this quick. We've got a situation developing down in Xevenya -"

_Uh-oh…not good._ Those few words were the last thing he wanted to hear right now. He controlled his expressions, suppressing the urge to frown and groan at the Admiral. Despite being combat-experienced, Vales still had a slightly green crew when it came to operating the new fighters and equipment. None of this had been field-tested completely yet. _Well…someone had to be the first…and looks like we get to be it._

"- fortunately, we believe we can use this situation to do a first combat testing and eval on your new ship and the fighters." The admiral continued. He cleared his throat a bit before speaking up. On the corner of the screen, Vales noted that some information began to transmit across the link. It was soon replaced with the rotating picture of

"I'm sure you've heard of the _Jolly Roger,_ Captain?"

Vales raised an eyebrow, and cursed internally. _Of course_ he had heard of it. Every bloody captain that was worth a shit from here to Alpha Centauri had heard of it.

"Yes, Admiral, I have."

"Good. The _Jolly Roger_ was recently spotted in the Xevenya system around a day ago. It was seen orbiting Xevenya VI before it disappeared into cloak. We have good reason to believe that it may be still in the system. While Sinclair station is capable of defending themselves against the threat adequately, they do not have the resources to actively protect the merchant shipping in the area, which might have already been struck at least once. They have asked for aid from Jessuis station and Commodore Jas, but neither them nor Starfleet Command has received a reply from the Villaires system as of yet."

The admiral paused, taking in a deep breath.

"Although Villaire's silence is somewhat troubling, its not your main objective. The USS _Peacekeeper-A_ is en-route to Xevenya and will rendezvous with you before it heads off to Villaires to investigate the reason for the silence"

Villaires not responding? Now this was indeed troubling. Still, he filed it at the back of his mind. There could be a dozen different possibilities as to why, but another captain had already been deployed to handle that situation, which meant that he had to focus on the task at hand.

Dethuris leaned in closer to the monitor as he then continued.

"We're sending you all the classified information on the _Jolly Roger_ that we have. Captain, your primary objective is to neutralize, and if possible _capture_ the vessel. Commodore Markhaven is wanted for international crimes and must be brought to justice. There is also technology – all of which have been explained in the file I just sent you – that may be of value to the Federation. While I understand that this may be risky, especially since its your first combat deployment, I also have faith in your ship and crew to be up to the job. In either case, there are no other forces in the nearby vicinity that can reach Xevenya before the Commodore has a chance to escape. The USS _Kali_ and the USS _Retribution_ are headed to aid you, but will not be there for another three days."

Vales only nodded as he began to read through the files. Their first tactical deployment…against a pirate cruiser, at that. Vales would have preferred to take on a Dominion fleet however – at least, to a certain extent, _they_ were predictable. But here he was dealing with a captain that was just as smart – perhaps even smarter – as starfleet's finest caliber.

"Yes sir…we'll get the job done. However…I do not know whether we can bring in the ship intact." Vales added. It was the truth, actually…

"I know you'll do your best, Captain. The priority is to get the ship back intact, and that is the way Starfleet would…_prefer_ it. However, the decision is in your hands – if civilian lives are at risk, then go ahead and do what is required. Do take note that any situation or eventual outcome will be examined very _thoroughly_ should it come to that outcome."

The tone of the Admiral's voice made it very clear where he stood on such issues.

_Must be vital technology, otherwise they don't get this insistant…_ Vales thought to himself. And as he read through the schematics and information, he realized that it actually _was_, justifying the Admiral's response.

"Yes sir, I'll do my best."

"Very well then; Sinclair station is currently on standby and waiting for your arrival. Their forces are at your disposal. It isn't much, but its still better than nothing. Good luck Captain, and don't fail us. Dethuris out."

Vales waited a few seconds before letting the screen go blank, all thoughts of breakfast or any food gone. He let out a long sigh once he was sure the microphone was off as well. Pressing the intercom, opening a channel straight to Sandra.

"Sandra, this is Vales. What's our ETA to Xevenya?"

"_We will reach the system in fifteen hours, sir." _Came the reply.

"Roger that. Assemble all senior officers and squadron leaders for a briefing in the pit in one hour. Tell them this is priority – we've finally got combat deployment orders. Get the _Silver Scythes_ on standby as well; their going to be sortied for long-range recon immediately once we hit the system."

"_Roger that Sir, briefing in one hour. Sandra out._

With that over, Vales let out another sigh, rubbing his temples to quell the slight headache that was forming. This was going to be a long, long day indeed.


	3. Chapter 2: Uncertain Origins

_**Chapter 2:**_

_**Uncertain Origins**_

_He floated freely through the stars and the void, unaware of who he was, or what he was doing here. Was this a dream, an illusion of reality? Or was it something else altogether? He did not remember who he was, or he had been…had he existed? Was there existence past the dark void that trapped him here? Was there freedom from the great solar winds that drove him from planet to planet, system to system? Or was he trapped here…forever free…and yet, at the same time, forever alone; his only companion the heartbeats of stars as they moved and played into the many varied rhythms of life and the universe._

_Was this the real world…and the other a dream? Or was it the other way around?_

_The question begged at him again as he realized that there had been a time before this, a time where he was neither as free, nor as lonely…but he did not know what went on in the time before now…hew just knew it had existed once. But there was knowledge…there were memories of them. He could feel them as they floated at the edges of his consciousness, at the borders of this realm. They were close by…almost in reach…yet as he did so, his fingers could only brush past them, never being able to take hold, never being able to bring them back._

_And then they began to float away from him…beyond the boundaries and edges…as if they were being taken away. It was then that he felt the other presence that had pulled it away. He recognized the other, who was a being just like him. But how or why he recognized it, he didn't know. He reached out the other, in an attempt to communicate, to ask why it was here…but mostly, he reached out of despair and loneliness, desperate to finally meet someone else other than him._

_But the other moved away even as he reached out. He chased after it, desperate to find out what had happened. Something drove him onwards as he did so, pulling him forwards behind the other as it kept pace with him. It always remained just out of reach, but never so far that he would try to stop chasing it. It tantalized him with memories…knowledge of its past, of what had happened to it, and ultimately, what it was. The allure was too strong for him to resist, causing him to feel something new, something he hadn't felt before: grim determination._

_Fueled by this strange new feeling, he moved with a surge of speed and caught up. The other was prepared, however, and reacted faster than he could. It braked, coming to a complete halt, turning around and then suddenly consuming him with a speed that did not allow him to move out of the way, or even give a proper reaction. His world disappeared, the freedom gone and the innocence lost. The determination gave way to a new feeling: fear. The primordial instinct took over him, consuming him in it's entirety as he tried to move, tried to escape from the prison that the other had placed him in._

_It was then that he felt something different…something that once more tickled his sense of curiosity. It was then that he felt the other, once more hovering over the edges…he did not feel any malice from it…just a cold, hard stare as it watched him fight, struggle against the walls of his confinement. He reached back, and looked at the other…and then noticed what was around it. Focusing on it, he saw behind it the stars, nebulae and planets that he had been wandering through just moments before. He tried to reach for them, but was stopped by some strange barrier. It was then that he looked at what he tried to reach out with. He recognized it as a hand…yet, at the same time, he did not know how he recognized it. Looking at the other in confusion, he only got the same blank stare in reply._

_And then he **remembered.**_

_Almost as if a tap had been turned on full blast, the memories came to him. A child playing under the sun of an alien world; the cold, dark corridors of a space station; sneaking into a room to read a sibling's diary; myriads of faces that filled the schools and colleges, and then the military academy…and then the recordings, the videos of the death, the pain…the suffering of the ones at the hands of first the great destroyers…and then at the hands a butcher of innocents. Then came the training, the constant amount of flying…and then the first few missions. The memories came uncontrolled and all at once, nearly overwhelming his mind and sanity as they rushed to bring him knowledge. Joy, suffering, pain, pleasure, lust, loathing, love, hate…all concepts completely alien and unheard of to him suddenly became normal within the blink of an eye. _

_He remembered, but at the same time **he** didn't. These weren't his memories. They had no familiarity, no trace. He looked once more at the other, unsure if these were it's memories that were being played out. The other's blank stare continued again…and then suddenly, it disappeared. _

_His surroundings changed, as did his form. He was no longer the floating entity that had once been, wild and free to roam anywhere he wanted. He recognized that he was now human…and in some kind of strange craft. Memories flooded his mind and he knew the craft. It was called a Myrmidon Space Superiority Fighter. It had a load-out of three secondary banks and two primary banks (2 and 4 guns each). He remembered his mission and his purpose here as he looked at the stars outside the cockpit, his heart aching to once more be free and floating amongst them. _

_He was here to chase the odd-looking ship in front of them. He was here to stop it, and capture the person on board. The person was the butcher. The butcher was the one that had killed so many of the innocents…denied freedom to many, many others. His mission was to stop the butcher. _

_There were panels around him; displays filled with information that was vital to what he was supposed to do. He continued to watch as his – what were they called? Fingers – yes, his fingers moved of their own accord. His body was moved backwards into the cockpit as the fighter surged forward in response. It was then that he realized he was not in control here, forced to watch as this memory…this legacy, played out in front of him. _

_A light came on one on of the displays, and then a voice spoke forth from the speakers. The memories told him that this was the one they called 'command', the one whose actions had probably caused as much deaths…but more due to incompetence, as opposed to deliberation. Yet, the other one knew that commands' actions were driven on by an ulterior motive…one that that the other did not know. This butcher had allied with the Great Destroyers…but for what? _

"Engage full burners and intercept the Iceni. They are two kilometers from the Sirius jump node."

_Command spoke. He recognized the name that command had mentioned. It was the name of the Butcher's chariot, the ship that had escaped so many times from Command, and from every attempt at capture till its eventual death. Curiosity struck him once more, as that particular memory was cut off, not elaborating how, or what happened to it. Was the other holding it back on him? What secrets lay below the surface…lay hidden behind the iron curtain?_

_He was distracted as another voice came over the radio…this time of one of the others remembered; a wingman in particular. The voice was angered, on the verge of hysteria almost, as it shouted over the general broadcast channel. A face appeared on the display, showing a man with a helmet over his mouth and face, but his eyes exposed. The words 'Alpha 2' were overlaid on the top-left corner._

"Command, we're five clicks from that corvette! Those coordinates you gave us were **bogus!** We don't stand a chance of catching that ship!

_Another mystery revealed…another set of possibilities opened to his hungry mind as he tried to contemplate what exactly was going on here. Had command deliberately given the wrong co-ordinates? Had they been deliberately delayed here…to let the butcher escape? There was no way for him to know… the other might, but it chose not to disclose it to him at this instant._

"You have your orders, pilot."

_Command replied, his voice betraying no emotion, no secrets or clue as to what was happening. Command's tone was cold and uncaring – a sharp contrast to the wingman's tone as he replied again._

"Command, Where's the blockade? Why isn't the alliance guarding this node?"

_Was there supposed to be a blockade? It would explain the confusion in the matter…and it seemed to fit in with Command's actions. Again, the cold reply came, like before betraying absolutely nothing._

"Our line of defense has been reprioritized for engagements elsewhere in the system."

_Elsewhere in the system? What was happening here? Was their betrayal amidst the ranks, or higher up at command? He was confused, incredibly so. What was the other trying to tell him? Did the other know the truth…if the other did, why did it refuse to divulge said truth?_

_And then another voice came over comm. system, along with a face. This was a different face…one that sent shivers down his spine. Suddenly, the other was there, standing right next to him and looking at the display as well. It studied the face as much as he did, remembering it. And then, as the face spoke, it mouthed the same words the butcher did. The tone was low, almost amused…and although nobody else felt it, there was something…an uncanny intelligence behind that voice, and behind the butcher's eyes. His posture was not of someone that was fearful or even oppressive. Had it been any other place, any other time or indeed – any other memory that did not know this person before, he would have said that this man was a great leader, someone that would bring about equally great change. Some might go as far as saying that he had the makings of even a hero of sorts. _

"I regret your efforts to intercept us has failed pilots. You would be well advised to question the wisdom of your leaders. Helm, engage subspace drive."

_Those last few words simply re-enforced his thoughts about this person. He watched as the Iceni jumped into subspace, vanishing into the blue and white vortex that opened up to first receive, then consume the ship completely. He turned around to see the other…only to find it suddenly gone. Its presence suddenly started retreating from his mind…as if fleeing an approaching enemy. The surroundings faded away as well, leaving him floating free once more. With it went the memories he had just learned, slowly fading away into the nothingness from which he had been so rudely taken. Fleeting concepts that he had just learned began to slowly dissipate as he returned back to the freedom's comforting embrace. _

_But his peace did not last long._

_It was then _another_ presence invaded his mind. This one simply did not sit and wait at the borders of his mind, however, and simply charged right in. Like the other, this one too toyed with his mind, taunting it…but it did it far, far more brutally. Memories seeped into his mind, agonizing memories of darkness, death and despair that poisoned his thoughts, twisting them into the images of madness and tragedy that combined together, driving his mind into the point of insanity._

_His surroundings changed, like before. But now he was somewhere else entirely. There was no consoles here, no displays…only a dark, hexagonal corridor in front of him. The corridor was lined with conduits that were glowed a bright blood-red color. He was floating here however, there being no gravity, as it were. _

_However, a creature stood forth before him…one with five limbs, and a fearsome set of eyes. It was larger than him, looking down at his comparatively weak form…and then, as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished. It crumbled into the ground, turning into a pile of sand and ashes that quickly blew all around him, circling him as if he were suddenly in the eye of a very angry tornado. It blew into his face and stung his eyes, choking his breath, and seemingly stealing the very sanity from his soul._

_  
And then, just as quickly as it began, the sand and dust stopped, falling to the ground and then disappearing through the grates. He looked down; blinking to clear whatever was left. He could feel the tears flow down his eyes and cheek…and then falling to the ground as he struggled to clear the sand out. _

_In-between his blinks however, he noticed that a new form was now standing him. His vision was too blurred to make out who it was, however. He blinked some more times and rubbed his eyes, trying in vain to identify the person._

_It was then that the person laughed. It was short and barely audible…starting with just one, then two. And then it increased in intensity and savagery as it echoed itself around the corridor. The voice was so familiar…so eerily familiar that he did not want to look up out of fear of knowing who it was. But he did so anyway…almost as if he was no longer in control. A feeling of helplessness filled his mind as his face rose up, watching the boots, the neat uniform…and then right into the face of the butcher that the other had shown him not moments before._

_Admiral Aken Bosch smiled as he stopped laughing and looked at him right in the eye. He spoke, softly, but his voice echoed around the chamber, making it sound partially metallic in origin. The voice reverberated not just through the chamber, but through his mind, and in the very essence of his being as well as Bosch spoke._

_**Your feeling of helplessness is your best friend, Savage.**_

_It was then that he let out an ear-shattering scream into the long night – however, it was then immediately drowned out by Bosch's metallic laughter._

And then he screamed again as he shot out upright from the bed. He sat there for a moment, panting and breathing heavily as he considered his position and where exactly he was. The remnants of the dream then released him as his memory returned back to him.

_Oh god…that darkness…that ship…that person – what the hell is happening to me?_

Lt. Junior Grade Daniel 'deadshot' Mobius thought to himself as he looked around his quarters, breathing and sweating heavily. That dream…that nightmare. It had been nothing like he had ever had before. Even as its last remnants disappeared from his immediate memory, Daniel tried his best to remove them and forget. Some nightmares were better left forgotten…and this was certainly one of them. Sighing, he swung his legs off the bed and sat for a moment, rubbing his eyes. Looking around the sparse quarters, Daniel realized he was somewhat lucky he was alone in here…had their been someone else, he'd probably have to explain it to them.

_Shit that was a bad dream._

He thought to himself. Not one of his nightmares to date had been so bad…most of them had either been about Sophie or Christina, and about what he had gone through during the Dominion war…but none of those even came close to this. No…it was too real…just _too_ real to have been related to that.

_Who is that person…and what does he want? Who was the other?_ the questions racked his brain as he got up and headed to the small bathroom to take a sonic shower and wash his face. He was going to have tell the counselor about this…perhaps she would have something to say or suggest to him…or at least increase his dosage up a bit.

Stopping near the sink, he switched on the water flow and sighed. Using both hands, he collected some in his palms and then washed his face and eyes. It was almost as if he could still _feel_ the sand in his eyes from the dream. It was impossible, though…he was awake now. The dream was over…and so was the nightmare. He closed his eyes and splashed his face with water again. However, when he brought his hands up, there was no water in them. Opening his eyes, Daniel realized his surroundings had changed. He was no longer on the _Persistance_ anymore…he was back in the corridor and junction, just like in his dream. Looking around, he took a glance in the mirror, and saw a face in it. He instantly recognized it and whirled around in fear…only to see the face of Admiral Aken Bosch staring right back at him. The admiral smiled as he spoke, slowly.

"_This has just begun."_

Daniel just screamed at the top of his lungs…and then awoke once more on his bed. He sat upright, his hands to his face, and almost completely covered in sweat – as was the rest of his body. Panting heavily, he looked around and tried to get a bearing on where he was. Bringing up both hands to his head, Daniel just buried his face in them.

_These nightmares are just becoming too much._ The truth was, even though he knew he was probably awake this time…Daniel couldn't help but just be a little suspicious.

_What if I'm still dreaming? What if I cant wake up…ever?_ He quietly pinched himself, to make sure, but still wasn't satisfied by the response. Daniel sighed…he could only hope that he was awake now. He had never had a dream so vivid…so unimaginably _real_ before. Sure, he had nightmares before – everyone did (except perhaps Tryx) – but not one of them had been like what he had gone through…not one of them remained in such vivid detail so long after he had woken up.

Sighing, he swung his legs out from under the blanket and off the bed. Rubbing his eyes, he got up, taking a wary look around the sparse quarters. That was when the intercom went off. Daniel's head shot up towards the ceiling as the familiar voice of his squadron leader, Lt. Commander Bishota rang out.

"_All Silver Scythes pilots, listen up. We've got a mission deployment coming up in around thirteen hours and a briefing from the captain in exactly forty-four minutes. Drop whatever you're doing now. I want to see you all assembled there in thirty minutes, no later. Bishota out."_

With that, the line cut and Daniel cursed. A mission deployment? Now this was certainly interesting. _Wonder what kind of mission we're getting in Xevenya…_ Daniel thought, his mind suddenly drifting off the nightmare, and more onto the current situation at hand. Still, he made a mental note to go and see the ship's counselor a bit later. This sort of a nightmare had to mean something…Daniel was pretty damn sure of that.

With a sigh, Daniel nodded to himself and rushed to get ready.

_**Briefing Pit,**_

_**30 minutes later.**_

The briefing pit was large and very spacious. About the size of a large holodeck, this room alone consumed a significant area of Deck 3. It was called a pit because in a sense it was exactly that. There were six rows of seats, arranged similar to a stadium format and at different heights. Small lanes filtered in between the rows, dividing it into several distinct columns. A total of twelve separate columns were present, one for each of the ten squadrons stationed aboard and one for the bridge and flight crew, and one extra in case it was needed. Each one was color coded for the specific squadrons. Bright red for the _Suicide kings_, Bright Yellow for the _Mad Bombers,_ silver for the _Silver Scythes,_ black for the _Star Childs,_ dark blue for the _Deadly Reapers_ and finally a deep shade of purple for the _Workmen. _The remaining columns were all empty, and were a dark grey color. The total capacity of the pit was large enough to take on more than the one hundred fifty pilots the _Persistance_ was slated to have at maximum deployment strength. However, today it was occupied by less than half that number.

The lanes started from each corner of the room, and ended at center – which also happened to be the lowest point in the room, the bottom of the pit as it were. Here, inside a large ring that separated the seats from the central area, a large 6 foot x 6 foot stable stood, at around waist-height, with a display console available to each of it's four sides. There was enough space between the ring and the table to allow for a few chairs, as well as enough room to walk around comfortably.

Overall, it was impressively made and well-suited to its task. There was another briefing pit like this one, but on deck 32 in the star drive section, and was more of the emergency backup in case this one was taken out. Two kinds of briefings took place here: the first was the command brief, where the Captain briefed only the squadron leaders and the rest of the bridge crew on the situation, and then the pilot brief. The pilot brief usually either took place with the specific squadron in question, with the squadron leader doing the briefing, or all the squadrons together, with Commander McCumbry taking the lead.

At least…usually. Daniel thought to himself. The room was mostly silent as the _Silver Scythes_ sat in the room, alone for the moment. There were just around 12 of them – three wings of four each. Daniel was seated third row up from the bottom of the pit, dressed up in the blue and black pilot's jumpsuit that was the standard uniform for them. The jumpsuit was only temporary, though, and for when he was out of the plane. All the pilots had to change to the standard Life-support protective vests and suits when they boarded their fighters. He was seated at the edge of the row, right next to the lane, and glanced left at the others. The rest of his wing mates were sitting in the row next to him. They were three of them total. The first was Lt. Junior Grade Ashter 'Glare' Minven, a Bajoran pilot that had been fighting and piloting small craft for nearly four years now.

A young woman at the age of 25, she was just a year younger to Daniel, but had seen far, far harsher times. She flew Alpha 2, and was probably the stealthiest member of the team, overall. She would have been given command of the wing, had it not been for her hot temper, however, as well as her origins. After finally having cut off ties from Bajor and her past almost a year ago, Ashter had changed her named and just about everything to get into Starfleet, and hence as far away from it as possible. She was a beautiful young woman, in almost every way, and attracted quite a few looks her way on more than one occasion. Her hair was cut short and gave her a tom boyish look, while piercing yellow eyes kept a nervous watch around the room, as if expecting an attack at any moment. She sat in the chair next to him, arms crossed across her chest. Ashter never spoke of her past, not saying one thing about Bajor to any of her comrades or wing mates. The only person she really spoke such things about were to the ship's counselor, and even then only because it was mandatory. Otherwise, she was usually the group's quietest member, preferring to remain in the shadows and speak only when necessary – a trait that had been perfect to land her into the _Silver Scythes_ and his wing. Her tendency and capability to stare at an object, or send a glare that could figuratively kill (especially to those that looked at her wrong) had earned her the call sign of 'Glare' by the rest of his wing mates. There was a wisdom behind those eyes, one speaking of many atrocities and

Sitting next to her, and day-dreaming away into the cieling was Ensign First Class Mitchell 'dead man' Skier. Skier was a tiny man, almost a dwarf size, even. Having a fairly Asian complexion, the ensign was probably the youngest of the team, and probably the youngest pilot onboard the ship. His hair was usually a shriveled mess, that had earned him more than his fair share of flak, but he had managed to keep it thanks to the counselor's help. His eyes hid behind them a sharp intelligence that observed his surroundings, while his muscles and strength gave second thoughts to those who thought he was a weak target. However, his habit of occasionally 'phasing out' and falling asleep during the off-duty hours gave him the squadron nickname of 'dead man', especially since he felt very much that way when people tried to wake him up from said sleep. There were times when Daniel could've sworn Skier didn't have a pulse. Of course, when medically checked up (even during said periods), nothing turned up, and he had never once done anything similar during any of the flights so far. Still…Daniel and the others had made sure to secretly install a shock circuit into Skier's chair, to shock him awake in case it did happen.

At just 20 years old his grades and intelligence had speeded his advance through the academy, and like many of the other pilots here, he had an uncanny knack at piloting small vessels, earning him a place onboard the _Persistance_ and its squadron several weeks ago when Daniel's previous wing mate, Darren Himler, had been shifted off to the _Stormchaser_. Skier didn't exactly have any specialty, and he had more of a preference to flying bombers as opposed to stealth and recon craft. Unlike Ashter, Skier lacked the patience to sit still for long. However, he was in his wing and squad primarily because of his flying skills, and to help them get out of tough situations that called for maneuverability and combat ability, as opposed to stealth. However, that didn't mean he wasn't stealthy when it was required – by default all the pilots in the _Silver Scythes_ had to have some degree of it. Skier, however, just had a slightly less amount than the others. However, he helped to round off the team in the non-stealth missions, especially when it came to flying the _Swift_ bombers. More often than not, in the simulations where the wing had to fly bombing missions, they would all take fighters and just let Skier take the bomber, escorting and protecting him as required. However, usually it wasn't necessary. His skill at piloting the Swift was almost as good as that of the _Mad Bombers_. However, as good as he was, he was nowhere near as good as they were.

_Few people can match RT and her group when it comes to doing things with those fat, ugly boats._ Daniel thought, as his gaze caught onto the last member of the group. The last member was…unusual, to say the least. The being was probably the most inhuman member of his squad…yet strangely suited and appropriate for fighting in space. At nearly eighteen feet long, the being had to coil up considerably so that it could fit on the chair, and was surrounded by a luminescent field that held a field of water within it. The being had absolutely no limbs anywhere on its yellow eel-like body, and reminded Daniel of the moray eels on Earth, except much larger, and a bit odder. The color scheme was differing, with yellow scales interrupted by patches of blue all along the body. Its eyes were large and had blue irises. They were fish-like, in the sense that they had no eyelids, and seemed to glow a blood red color whenever they were in shadow, probably allowing the Sandgrate to look in the dark just as easily as he was looking in the light. Long, sharp teeth protruded out from his upper and lower jaws slightly, curving inwards like fangs. They carried a sharp dose of poison that was enough to paralyze most creatures even larger than it. This was, in turn, supported by the massive electric shock that the blue scales were capable of producing. Daniel could see the water flow in and out of his gills, and the shiny silver anti-gravity plate that had been attached along the full length of its lower fin, allowing the eel to 'swim' in air, as it were. The Sandgrate had a particularly long name, one that was unpronounceable to the rest of his wing, so had instead taken on the call sign of 'Moray' to make things easier.

The Sandgrates were actually very, very old members of the federation, dating from all the way back to Captain Kirk's time. They had a history of support and solidarity, as well as generally helping the Federation and Starfleet with their meager space force when necessary. Like the Korak, the Sandgrates had specialized in small fighter and bomber combat, as opposed to capital-class vessels. This was partially because of a lack of metal and resources in their primarily ocean-filled planet. Having developed a significant amount of telekinesis in lieu of growing limbs, the Sandgrates had remained separate from Starfleet till recently – partially because of incompatibilities in ship's life support systems, and partially because of their isolationist nature. As such, when a Sandgrate citizen had applied for a position as a pilot in Starfleet just as they were starting the fighter program, the commanders had jumped on the opportunity to get experienced crew. However, what struck Daniel as odd, was the fact that from what he knew, Ensign Moray had asked _specifically_ for a posting on the persistence, and _specifically_ one in the _Silver Scythes_. He had turned down command of a wing and a jump in rank, insisting on just flying as a wing mate on any of the other wings. This was very odd considering the fact that of all the four in Alpha wing, Moray was probably the oldest at a hundred and six years, and probably the most experienced. It was an awkward situation, to say the least, but he had fit into the somewhat odd group rather well, as had been proven in the last few months. Unlike the others, Moray did not specialize in any given field, and was a true all-rounder. He (Daniel had found out the gender of the Sandgrate in a rather…_uncomfortable_ way, sadly) was capable of flying anything with equal skill and handling, and capable of doing it very well indeed. Unlike the others, he did not have a concept of up and down; having lived the somewhat free water environment till recently. Like Trix, he controlled the fighter directly, the controls hooked in straight into his mind, making an excellent addition to the wing.

Moray noticed that Daniel was looking at him, and then turned to face the human. The eyes stared at him, the irises focusing on. The jaws opened, and said something in a language that he couldn't understand…which was promptly translated just a second later. The voice was deep and he could hear a slight echo of the rush of water around the Sandgrate's gills as it came through.

"Just staring at me isn't going to do anything you know, Sir."

Daniel just sighed and shook his head, nodding at Skier, who was still day-dreaming into the ceiling. Moray just nodded and a second later, Skier was somewhat startled as, suddenly, _something_ brushed across his hair and forehead. The effect was Moray's telekinesis, of course. It was just a gentle touch and movement, of course, but Moray could have been a lot less gentle should he have desired it.

Ashter seemed to notice this as well, but said nothing, preferring instead to concentrate on the data pad in her hand. Daniel sighed again, and leaned forward, speaking across her.

"Psst…Dead man, you didn't catch any sleep yesterday?"

Skier looked at Daniel, somewhat embarrassed at being caught in such a blunder. He shook his head.

"Yes sir…err, I mean no sir. I'm fine."

Skier stuttered as he nodded and gave a slight smile. Daniel just gave a slight cough, taking a glance at the briefing pit before looking up again.

"Yah, right. Keep on your toes, dead man. Don't want the Squad-com to spot you dozing off."

Daniel said, giving him a slight smile before leaning back and sitting down. He took a quick nervous glance at Lt. Commander Bishota as she sat still down at the briefing area. Today the briefing was different than usual – far different. It seemed that the captain was going to brief all the squadrons and pilots directly. Apparently, this was a somewhat important mission they were going on. It was then that a commotion came from the door and a large; red bug with several spots on it skittered through, followed by an equally alien procession of various federation species. He recognized most of them; Andorians, Bolians, Klingons, Human, Vulcan and non-humanoid races alike. The squadrons fell into their various rows and columns, arranging the wings as required. The largest squadron were the _Star Childs_, at nearly 6 wings (two of which had six fighters instead of the usual four), they filled up pretty much their entire column, with only two seats to spare. Unlike the others, theirs was the only one currently running at full operating strength. Second in quantity was RT's squadron, which had four wings of five each. Then there were the two ships of the _Workmen_ and their crews, along with the three ships of the _Deadly Reapers_ and their crews, filling up less than a quarter and half of their columns respectively. Overall, Daniel was somewhat glad he was where he was. The _Silver Scythes_ had just the right amount of personnel to him; not too large so that he didn't know anyone in the other wings, yet not too small that they were the only ones there.

Soon, the clock ticked over, and forty five minutes had passed since the initial call of assembly had come out. Murmurs filled the briefing hall, being a sharp contrast to before. However, none of the squadron commanders reprimanded it as they gathered in the pit and began to discuss. They were apparently as much in the dark as the rest of the pilots were. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the doors at the top opened again and the bridge crew began to file it. Several ensigns followed suit, holding stacks of data pads in their arms. A few of the pilots got up and helped them carry it down to the pits, where they were divided amongst the commanders. The ensigns then left; leaving the stacks on the table.

Daniel watched as the squad commanders spoke amongst themselves for a minute, and then seemed to agree. He leaned a bit to his left and whispered to Ashter, who was also watching the commanders.

"You hear anything of what their saying, Ashter?"

She only shook her head. She wasn't hearing anything either – not that many people could over the din.

"_All pilots, listen up!"_ Commander McCumbry's voice rung out suddenly, automatically amplified by the computer systems and his comm. Badge. The room quickly fell into silence as the commander looked around and then nodded.

"The Captain is current only his way here, and will start this briefing in around two minutes. We've divided the stacks of data pads according to each squadron's orders. The persons in front please take the stacks and distribute it to the ones behind and then maintain silence. Absolutely _no_ discussions until the Captain arrives and begins the briefing, is that clear?"

Nobody responded, and instead the front most person on the right side of each occupied column got up and headed to the railing that divided the seats and the pit. The respective commander was there waiting for them, and handed out the data pads. The person – an Ensign Andy, he recognized - from the _Star Childs_ had to make two trips though, due to the sheer number of data pads there.

The data pads were passed up the rows, and Daniel got his. He glanced at it briefly, and nearly gawked as he saw the security requirements. The first message on the pad was a simple text saying **Security Level Epsilon**. If he got this right, these materials were actually meant for those who were captain rank and above…and yet it had been distributed to them? Something was certainly up for a breach of protocol like this. He took a glance at Ashter and the others (and it was somewhat unnerving to watch as Moray's pad hovered on it's own in front of his face). Their faces and expressions pretty much reflected his feelings as well…something was up.

The doors then opened again, and everyone turned in unison as the captain came in, followed by the first officer and the ship's doctor.

Commander McCumbry immediately went to attention and shouted loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Captain on the deck!"

As one, all the squadrons arose and stood at attention.

"As you were." The captain said, nodding slowly. Everyone sat down again with precision.

With that, he walked down with the first officer and into the pit. He conferred with the squadron commanders for a few seconds before nodding at them and turning around. He had a separate data pad next to him, which he pressed a few keys on. The holographic panel in the center of the table suddenly lit up, going through its activation and safety subroutines before giving a small chime to confirm it was online.

The commanders quickly moved to their seats and waited for the Captain to begin. Daniel looked on as the captain sighed for a minute, consulted his pad and then nodded. He tapped his comm. Badge to activate the loudspeaker system. At the same time, Daniel noted that the warning sign on his pad had de-activated, and a picture of a nebula-class cruiser appeared. It was distinctively different, though. However, rather than read it.

"All right people, lets get this started. We've received our orders from Starfleet, as well as our first combat evaluation assignment. As such, I have decided to personally come down and give a command briefing to all of you, as this isn't a holodeck sim, nor is it just another military exercise. This is the real deal here, and we're now faced with an extremely dangerous foe."

A hologram flickered to life around two feet above the table. It was a 3d-representation of the Greek alphabet 'Epsilon'.

"First things first, though. The following material is classified level Epsilon. Unauthorized access if punishable under the Starfleet act, Earth convention, section 321-45. You are all authorized to view this information right now, however, so relax. You are, however, bonded by law not to display, reproduce or otherwise leak any of this information outside of this briefing room, is that understood?"

The Captain was satisfied as he received nods or other signs of affirmative from the pilots and crew.

"Very well then, let us proceed."

The holograph changed and the alphabet disappeared. It was then replaced by a nebula class starship, similar to the ones on their data pads. It appeared first as a wire-frame model, and then the color quickly began to fill. There was something…odd about the ship and the star drive section, which was visible almost immediately. Most nebula-class vessel had a 'v' shaped module pod on the top of the star drive section that could be attached and then switched out for differing types. But the one on this one seemed significantly different. It was not in a 'v' shape for one, and looked more like a cylinder with one side open, and the back closed. From what could be seen, the insides were similar to a deflector dish…except they glowed blood red color that just gave the upper rear part of the saucer section an eerie appearance. The pod also seemed permanently attached to the stardrive section, with struts and specialized external connections meandering their way down the entire engine assembly and to the warp nacelles on either side and underneath of the saucer section. The rest of the ship's colors were not the silver, whites and reds of a federation vessel. Instead, the colors were different…far, far different.

The main hull of the ship was a dark black color, with several odd white spots on the top. No windows shown or internal lights shone, giving it an overall dark appearance. However, in several places it had been replaced with red patches of externally attached equipment, but even on these, one could easily tell there were burn marks. The saucer section especially had some special modifications: from where the bridge should be was a long mast, around 10 meters in height. No…it wasn't a mast…it was a _flag pole_. From it hung a piece of cloth that seemed to drift in an invisible wind. It was obviously made from a special material to be capable of flapping in the solar wind like that, or at least computer-controlled. The ship rotated quickly, zooming in not just the flag, but the whole top of the saucer itself. Daniel and many others had noticed the odd patches of white across the top of the saucer, but at the angle he had been unable to make it out. Four copies the top section displayed itself in each direction, and several sharp intakes could be heard from many of the human members in the pit.

_As if my day couldn't get any worse._

Daniel himself withheld a curse as he realized that the Captain was absolutely right. This was, by no means, a run in the park. He glanced over at Skier, who just stared at the image in shock. Daniel sighed, and looked back at the hologram.

The image of a human skull and two crossed bones stared back at him. It was painted not just on the saucer, but on the flag as well. Any human in the room would have recognized what it meant instantly. It was a thought that the Captain put into words as he then spoke.

"This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the _Jolly Roger, _currently**the** most dangerous vessel to ever roam in the Alpha Quadrant. This ship, as it stands, could potentially take on a Borg Tactical Cube on its own and come out the victor, partially thanks to the weapons it wields onboard, and partially thanks to the intelligence of it's captain."

He paused, looking around the gathered group and some of the non-human pilots.

"For those of you that may not know about this ship, here's a brief run-down of its history."

The hologram disappeared, this time replaced by the picture of a 'normal' nebula class starship. The pod at the back was still the same as the one he had seen earlier, however. The name was changed this time, and anyone could clearly see the words _"U.S.S. Redemption"_ on the hull.

"As you all know, around three years ago Starfleet and discovered the relative dangers and damage we were causing to subspace using the old warp drive. However, with the adaptation of the new warp drive, as well as travel regulations all over the federation, we have to a certain extent, negated causing any further damage to subspace with our warp engines. However, as you know, warp drive travel in the damage areas is relatively impossible with traditional warp. As such, around two months from the incident, the science vessel _U.S.S. Sparta_ made a significant discovery while investigating the extent of the subspace damage."

This time the holograph changed to show the exterior of a different starship. Daniel leaned forwards, a bit interested in what exactly he was seeing here. The ship was a Nova class science vessel, much like the infamous and ill-fated _U.S.S. Equinox. _

It stood still in space for a second, before a tractor beam reached out from its deflector array, and then seemed to grab an unseen object in the middle of space. In the middle of the tractor beam, something began to form – Daniel tried to get a glimpse of it. It looked like a vortex…a blue and white one that seemed eerily familiar…but then the picture suddenly cut out into a burst of static and the captain spoke up.

"The picture you see was recorded by a drone that the _Sparta_ had sent out before they tried their dangerous experiment." The captain paused for a minute, lowering his head and looking at the Hologram before continuing. His tone turned grave, and somewhat sad.

"The _Sparta_ was lost with all hands as their deflector dish gave out. From what we can tell from scanning the area, it appears that they were attempting to access subspace and, in essence, open a tunnel through it. The damaged properties of subspace gave it a unique element that the _Sparta_ attempted to exploit and use. They believed that they could open a route through subspace and enter it by manipulating the local gravity distortions into their favor. They succeeded in opening an entrance for all of five seconds. However, they did no have the energy required to sustain it as they attempted to cross the threshold, and the resulting closure cut the ship in half, leaving only half the stardrive section behind, of warp core of which promptly went through destabilization and then exploded, while the other half was forever trapped in subspace. Fortunately, their sacrifice was not in vain, and the probe we recovered managed to get all the data. However, Starfleet has classified the entire matter level Epsilon, as what they have discovered is very, very important."

The hologram changed again, this time to show a solar system. It was just like most other solar systems, with nothing really special to it.

"When studying the data, Federation scientists concluded that although the _Sparta_ had the right idea, the implementation was significantly off. Although it did, in the end, manage to open up a rift and tunnel in subspace, to sustain the gravitational distortions and neutrality required to _keep_ it open were far beyond her means. However, unlike in open space, most solar systems have these gravitational anomalies in the forms of the various Lagrange points between planets, stars and moons. Keeping this in mind, Starfleet began to conduct secret experiments in the Villaires system initially. The first experiments included drones and probes, primarily fitted to first open, and then hold open, and then enter these subspace rifts. The process was complicated, but after multiple trials and errors, the first successful subspace jump was successful.

The hologram didn't change, however something appeared on it. It was barely a pin-point at first…but it slowly grew and turned, twisting with blue and white energy that leaked out…and then get sucked right back into the swirling vortex. The patterns of white and blue played across the hologram, striking Daniel with familiarity…and fear. Buried memories of the nightmare he had earlier crawled their way back into his minds as he looked on as a probe emerged from the vortex.

"What you see here, is the signature first ever success in entering and then exiting of a subspace rift. This, my friends is the greatest invention to the federation since warp drive. This new form of travel would grant for near instantaneous travel to anywhere in a system – and safely, too. However, with impulse drive available, this was not too gigantic a step. With this initial success, the next logical step was attempting to jump from system to system. The limitations of this system was that the start and exit points need to be at a gravitational distortion. We soon discovered that occasionally, these distortions would form a 'natural' tunnel of 'weak' subspace between systems. These distortions – henceforth designated as Subspace Nodes – were concentrated enough to allow a ship to remain in subspace and traverse as much as _hundreds_ of light years in the matter of a few minutes. As long as two systems were connected by a subspace corridor, you could traverse that corridor at sub-light speeds, skipping the distance in-between almost completely."

A loud murmur went up in the room, and a sick feeling began to form in Daniel's stomach. The Captain paused to take a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, before speaking up once again.

"The first starship ever to try this new system of travel was the _U.S.S. Redemption._ A nebula class cruiser, the ship was refitted with a special subspace drive pod that would allow it to open up a subspace hole large enough to accommodate the hull and drives. The downside was that while the pod was active, the ship's warp drive and coils had to be offline. The first test was to take place between Xevenya and Villaires, and was conducted under the utmost secrecy. The only ones to officially hear about this project in the brass were Admiral Nechayev and the Federation president. The ship itself was led by Commodore Markhaven Telos, an exploratory veteran at the time that had made contact with numerous new species. He and his crew were used to test the new drive. Before this, probes had already been deployed through the corridor to limited success, but to truly see if it was feasible, live subjects would have to be sent through, as well as a significantly sized vessel."

The hologram changed again, this time showing the _Redemption_ as it approached the node. The node itself was a sphere constructed out of connecting lines and dots. Daniel recognized it as a HUD object to essentially identify and easily spot the node. On the screen, the vortex opened again just in front of the ship's bow, and the vessel entered it. Within seconds, it was consumed and disappeared as the Vortex closed behind it.

"At 0700 hours, on the 3rd of June, 2375, the _Redemption_ entered subspace in the most historic voyage of our time."

The Captain paused before looking up…his eyes held a strange expression…a sadness of sorts.

"For three days, the research team at Xevenya waited for the _Redemption_ to emerge from subspace. They ran scans, sent probes into the corridor – they pretty much did everything in their power, but were unable to find any remains or information on the _Redemption_. It was somewhat unsure where it had gone, but many believed it would show up. They waited there for another day before beginning to pack up and declaring the experiment a failure. However, in the last hours before they left, the science ship _U.S.S. Traveler_ picked this up from the Xevenya node."

The hologram changed to static for a moment, and then the image changed to once again display a subspace node. Another vortex opened up here as well, but this time a vessel began to emerge from it. The crew gasped as they saw the condition of the vessel. It was nothing like what had gone into the node.

The ship that emerged from the node had gone through intense amounts of battle. There were massive holes all over the hull, where some sort of beam weaponry had cut through it cleanly. One nacelle had been sliced off completely, while burn marks littered the ship. A neat hole was present where the bridge used to be.

"As you can see…it appears that the vessel underwent serious combat. We believe that the node was unstable at the time, switching destinations rapidly and in a particular pattern. The _Redemption_ seemed to have been deposited elsewhere in the galaxy, where it encountered a hostile race that was hell-bent on killing it, from the look of the ship's condition. However, when we tried to raise Markhavan, this was the only reply we got. Scans would later indicate that Markhavan was the only survivor from this incident. His entire crew was killed, essentially leaving him as the only survivor."

The hologram changed again, this time showing a two-dimensional view of a bridge. It was clearly the emergency one, however, as it was significantly smaller and tighter than any other. Strewn all around the bridge were dead bodies, however. Some of them had clear causes of death, from burns or such…others, on the other hand, seemed to have more…_disturbing_ causes…as if their bodies had been ripped and torn apart by a giant energy sword, or something similar. The strangest sight, however, was of the figure seated in the center of the bridge. There was no light, save for what the screen cast – and even that was not enough to illuminate the figure, who remained largely in shadow.

"_U.S.S. Redemption, this is the Traveler! Good god, we're finally glad to see you. We've been waiting here for three days – what happened? What is your status, where is your crew, Commodore?"_

The reply from the commodore was slow, and his tone sent shivers up and down Daniel's spine. That voice…it was so eerily familiar…so identical to the one in his nightmares. Could he be the shadow, the mysterious figure that Daniel had seen?

"_Dead…their all dead…"_

"_How, commodore? What happened? Where did you go."_

The Commodore's voice became even lower…barely a whisper now. But Daniel – and everyone in the room – could _feel_ the fear, the horror as he spoke.

"_The node…it exited somewhere else…someplace far away…my god. We were chased by these beings…they wouldn't stop…wouldn't relent. They chased us through subspace, from system to system…"_

The figure looked up, but his face was not exposed to the light here.

"_They boarded us two days ago - we could barely repel them…everyone else was killed…all because of what we did…what I did."_

"_Commodore? What are you talking about? We are sending ships to assist, stand by."_

"_You don't understand…a plague is coming…and it's because of me…they will find us, eventually…and nobody will be able to stop them. Run…run while you still can!"_

The commodore leaned forward, and Daniel physically shook as he saw that half of his face was burnt and covered in blood. There was no way this man should have survived…no way in hell he should even be talking at that moment. Then the channel cut, leaving behind only static.

The static remained on the hologram as the Captain turned around and looked at the men.

"As you can see, the commodore was significantly traumatized by his encounter. Before any of the ships were able to respond or stop him, he escaped, fleeing with subspace drives into Orion-controlled territory. He has since then evaded federation custody, and every attempt to catch him and the prototype. Starfleet has hence called the project a failure, as the subsequent destabilization of subspace has meant that most – if not all – corridors are significantly unstable and continue to oscillate randomly. However – "

The Captain began, before pausing to take a breath.

" – one important thing we do know is that somehow, Commodore Markhaven has figured out this secret, and knows how to stabilize the corridors. He has used it to his advantage, striking a deal with the Orions to repair the ship and rebuild it with illegal subspace-based weaponry, as well getting a few new crew members. He has since double-crossed the Orions, and managed to escape in the bargain. Commander Markhaven is now considered an international criminal, wanted for crimes all over the Alpha Quadrant. He has re-designated the _Redemption_ to the _Jolly Roger_ as we have seen here. Starfleet command suspects that his sanity has fractured thanks to the events that have transpired. However, as much as it may have failed, he is still smart enough to evade us at every turn, and even set traps and outsmart the best Starfleet captains."

The hologram display changed yet again, this time back to a visual of the _Jolly Roger._

"Now that the history lesson is over, we need to get down to basics and our mission."

The Captain put both hands behind his back as he looked at the rows of pilots in front of him.

"Our objective right now is to find, attack and capture the _Jolly Roger_ and apprehend the Commodore. We need that technology intact, and we need to find out what happened to his crew. To this extent, we need information first."

The ship began to spin in the hologram, and information came up showing weapon stats and other information on the ship as a whole. Someone whistled from the lower chairs.

Shit…that's a lot of firepower.

Daniel thought as he read it out. That was no longer a Nebula class cruiser…just from the firepower along, that could be qualified as a Battlecruiser, or hell, even a dreadnought! 4 Type XII Multi-fire phaser arrays, 3 Cardassian Disruptors (the kind they used in the Galor-class starships, even), 4 Klingon disruptor turrets, six torpedo launchers, an unknown subspace weapon capable of destroying a Borg Tactical cube in one shot, subspace drives capable of letting it jump to the other side of the system instantaneously and safely.

Now this is completely loaded.

He took a glance to Ashter and the others. They were going to have their work cut out for them to say the least. However, Ashter seemed to have a strange look in her eyes…as if she wanted to say something, but didn't want to divulge it here. She looked up, and met his eyes for a moment…in that one moment, Daniel got the message. _Later._ Ashter had something on her mind that she wanted to share with them…but not here.

He nodded, and continued to pay attention as the Captain spoke up, addressing his column directly.

"We have information on the ship and its capabilities, what we don't have is information on it's current status and whereabouts in the Xevenya system. _Silver Scythes_ this is where you come in. Your squadron will be tactically deployed once we reach the outer edges of the system in…twelve hours, approximately. Your wings will investigate the system and conduct scans on all the planets and local jump nodes. We need to find this ship, and then scan it to find out its current condition, possible flight plan, how much fuel it has and what the state of its subspace drive is. I'll leave the planning in the capable hands of your squadron Commander, Lt. Commander Bishota. _Star Childs_ and _Suicide Kings_, both of you are on guard duty. We've got a scan on the three nodes in the system. One leads to Villaires, the other to Ticonderoga and the last to an unidentified system. Your objective is to guard these nodes in case the Markhaven decides to go for them. Our ship will be waiting in the center of the system, and will deploy along with what resources Sinclair station can deploy with us. Most likely, their ships will deployed to the blockade, and we'll be providing the firepower necessary. _Mad Bombers_ will deploy at the Villaires node, as that's central to the other two and will allow you to respond in the right amount of time, if need be. Your commanders with brief you on the shifts involved, as well as the waiting times."

The Captain finally stopped, taking a deep breath.

"That's it for this briefing. I'll leave you to your commanders for the rest."

With that, the Captain nodded at the commanders and then moved to left. The pilots quietly began to discuss about this. Daniel glanced at Ashter, somewhat curious as to what she had to say…but she kept silent, not saying a word.

Later then… Daniel thought to himself as he sighed and listened to Lt. Commander Bishota as she spoke out, giving them their orders.

Fifteen minutes later, Daniel's wing was out of the pit, and walking down the corridors. Moray glided past and above him, keeping pace with the rest of the ones that were walking. His long and slender form swam through the air, the full eighteen feet length stretching through the corridor. Daniel ignored it, though, instead focusing on Ashter's form as it walked in front of him. The corridor was initially crowded, but soon cleared out, leaving their group as the last one there. Finally, Ashter stopped, and turned at Skier and the others.

The three of them turned around (or rather, coiled back in Moray's case) and faced her. Looking at them, Daniel realized they all suspected that Ashter had something to say about all this. Moray was the first to speak out.

"You wish to say something, Miss Ashter. We saw it in the briefing room…you should say it now."

She only nodded, and looked away for a second.

"Something's not right about this whole deal."

Daniel looked at the others.

"So that's it? That's what you've been bottling up till now?"

Skier asked from behind him, echoing Daniel's thoughts. Ashter shot him a glare that could probably melt a bulkhead, and Skier shut up. She looked back at Daniel.

"No…something doesn't add up here. You saw the Commodore's transmission…that man was horrified when he finally came out of Xevenya."

Daniel nodded. That much was true as it is. His line of reasoning began to follow Ashter's, as Moray interjected from above him.

"I believe I know where you are going with this…if this is indeed where this started, and where the commodore has lost his comrades…why is he coming back here?"

Daniel paused to consider this…why had the Commodore come back here, of all places? Was he here to pay respects…or for something far more _sinister_? A flash of the memory from the nightmare hit him again…that vortex…those strange creatures…could it be?

no…no it couldn't. he brushed the thought aside.

"Whatever his reasons may be…we still have a mission to complete. I suggest we get some rest now, and meet up again in 9 hours and do our pre-flight checks and whatever testing and practice we need, understood?" The others nodded, and Alpha wing quickly departed, each going their separate ways, leaving Daniel all alone in the corridor. Sighing, he headed towards his quarters, stifling a yawn…perhaps now he could get some trouble free sleep, at least.


	4. Chapter 3: Nightmares Abound

_**Chapter 3:**_

_**Nightmares Abound**_

**_6th December 2378,_**

_**1854 Hrs, **_

_**Flight Deck one**_

Ever since the briefing, Flight deck one had become incredibly alive. In preparation of their first combat sorties and deployments, Flight Chief Su'Vek had ordered for all crews to do double shifts, since most of the fighters save one or two would be deployed immediately upon entry into Xevenya. As such, all the fighters and bombers needed to be armed with their respective ordinances and prepped for simultaneous launch from all four flight decks. With the crews working double time, the fighters had been prepped almost six hours ago and kept ready, after which most of the crew had gone to rest for a few hours before the actual launches at 2000 Hrs.

However, the key saying here was _most_ of the flight crew. A small few had to stay behind to keep watch and help with the launch of the _Silver Scythes,_ who were slated to deploy and do recon a little under an hour earlier – at 1905Hrs, to be precise. Checking the time, Daniel just sighed as he sat in the cramped cockpit of his _Night watcher_ stealth fighter.

When he had first heard the fighter was cramped, he hadn't believed it really was _this_ cramped. The cockpit resembled that of the 20th century fighters that Daniel had read quite a bit about, with an exception being that there was actually a walkway next to him. It led to a small compartment in the rear that had a toilet and an equally cramped bunk that had been placed there especially for long-range operations. However, since life-support systems would compromise some amount of stealth, it was almost always off, and the pilots were in environmental suits instead. When they went off-duty, a force field would activate behind the cockpit and the rear area would become habitable.

As small as the cockpit was, it actually took a significant percentage of the fighter itself. It was actually very tiny when compared to the other fighter craft here. Overall, it was just eight meters long and four meters high. The hull was in an oval shape, with the top-middle section growing into elongated wings that curved downwards. The nose was curved downwards as well, in a beak-like manner, as was the rear. Several extensions from the wing reached downwards and held detachable micro-torpedo racks underneath. Apart from the racks however, there were no other protrusions or oddities to mar the incredibly smooth, black surface of the _Night watcher_. All the impulse engines and nacelles were completely internal and squeezed in as small a space as possible, while weapons systems were limited to two Type U Pulse phasers that would pop out of the nose.

_A marvel of Federation engineering they said…yet still, they couldn't have at least squeezed another few centimeters into this cockpit somewhere._ Daniel didn't complain out loud though. He knew that as cramped as he was in here, it was still nothing compared to how badly Moray had been cramped in the fighter right behind his. Looking to his right, Daniel could see Ashter sitting in her fighter and performing the pre-flight checks on the various systems. She then noticed he was looking at her and then shot him a glare. Her expression was clearly visible through the helmet's visor, though, and Daniel quickly looked away and back at his own systems. Skier and Moray were both behind his and Ashter's craft respectively, and would launch immediately after them. Ahead of him four similar rows of craft, all lined up and ready to take off once they were given clearance. His wing would be the last to depart, with Bishota going first in Kappa wing.

Instead, he looked at his displays. There were five total; the one to his right displayed his ship's current status and shield integrity, along with other vital data related to the warp drive. The one two his left displayed information on his current target, and its status. On the screen now was an external image of the USS _Persistence_ and the its current systems status. Everything was 100, as it should have been. Pressing the controls next to the pad, he switched the display, dividing it into three rows, each one displaying a current readout on each of his wingmen. It wasn't really necessary, actually, as the monitor right next to the HUD showed a similar display – except not as in-depth. That one was primarily meant for a full-squadron status display, though, as opposed to just his wing, and as such didn't have as many details. It also served as a de-facto communications control panel. The display on the opposite side of the HUD held the long-range sensor analysis controls – basically the eyes and ears of the craft, as it were.

The central most display was just in front of the flight control stick, though – and was more of a holographic three-dimensional representation of the space around him, with several icons indicating what kind of craft, as well as other valuable tactical data.

The most interesting feature was the actual control joystick, though. Starfleet's engineers had borrowed heavily from the Delta Flyer's system of control for its fighters, going back to its roots in the 20th and 21st centuries. It had actually two system of control: the traditional touchpad and co-ordinate feeds, meant primarily for warp combat or long-range accuracy, and the joystick/foot pedals for close-range impulse combat, which allowed for more fluid motion and control by the pilot. The interface had a similar blend of old-and-new technologies, with their being both touchpad controls, as well as old-fashioned switches.

Looking through the square sights in the middle of his HUD, Daniel sighed again as he checked the time.

_1900 hours…just another five minutes to go._ He couldn't wait to get flying…yet, at the same time, he had to squelch a feeling of dread about the entire thing. There was something…_wrong_ with the entire deal and the mission, yet Daniel couldn't place his finger on exactly what. His thoughts were interrupted suddenly, however, when the display on his upper right switched from the squadron's status to that of Lt. Commander Bishota's face. The female Andorian had the same dour look on her face that she wore pretty much everywhere as she spoke.

"_All wings, perform your pre-flight checks, activate your warp cores, shields, stealth and torpedo systems."_

The channel then cut as Daniel sighed. He keyed the panel next to the communications display and opened a line to the fighters around him. Speaking into the channel he began to perform his own pre-flight checks, flipping the switches on the various consoles to bring the engines, shields and torpedo racks online, as well as conduct the warp core diagnostics. The processes began to run on his screen and the results displayed one by one as he spoke.

"Ok guys and gals, you heard the lady. Preflight checks please."

The comms. screen flickered once more, and Ashter's face appeared on the channel as she did her preflight checks.

"_Alpha 2 here. Preflight checks complete, I've got green lights across the board and the Warp core's running smoothly."_

Daniel reached up to the right of the display and pressed a series of switches that controlled the coolant valves. He opened up all of the feeds into the warp core before attempting to activate it. Behind him, he could hear the humming of the engine come online and a slight vibration coursed through the hull and the cockpit as it did so. The screen flickered again, and the masked face of Skier came on.

"_Alpha 3 reporting. Most of my systems are green here as well. I've got a power line to my Holographic generators edging a bit towards the yellow, though."_

Daniel frowned. Although not very indicative, it was always safe to check. He opened a new line to the flight crew and replied.

"Copy that Alpha 3. Did you get that flight control?"

This time the reply was audio only as Flight Chief Su'Vek replied.

"_Affirmative Alpha wing, we copy and have the feed on sensors. The discrepancy is well within operational parameters – you should encounter no problems with it out in the field."_

Daniel gave an internal sigh and shook his head as Su'Vek's face disappeared, to be replaced with Skier's.

"_Sorry about that, Sir. All other systems are green light – I'm good to go."_

"Relax, dead man. We'll have it checked out when we come back. Do your job right and you probably won't need to use them. What's your status, Moray?"

The display changed to show a rather close-up view of a _very _cramped Moray coiled up in his cockpit. His scales shimmered with the bright blue aura of the life-support field surrounding him. The camera was centered at Moray's head and rather large teeth. It was so close that Daniel could see the water cycle through the eel's gills inside the force field.

"_All systems are green - ready for launch at your discretion._"

The double reply came over the translator. Daniel could hear the metallic grating noise beneath the translated voice-over, though. He ignored it, and instead nodded as the screen switched off. He re-opened the channel, this time audio only, to the Flight crew and Lt. Commander Bishota.

"Kappa 1, this is Alpha 1 reporting. Alpha wing is all clear and ready for launch."

"_I read you Alpha wing. Flight control, this is Kappa 1. We're ready for deployment at your command."_

The display flickered, and a different face appeared on the screen. This time it was that of Flight Coordinator Simmons – Su'Vek's assistant. His British origins became abundantly clear as his deep, accented voice filled the comms. line less than half a second later.

"_All wings prepare for liftoff. Kappa wing, you have clearance."_

Past the fighters in front of him, Daniel could see Bishota's fighter rise off the deck as the anti-gravity generators came online before it moved forwards quickly. The force field at the exit of the runway flickered as the first two fighters flew through it, quickly followed by the next two. Simmon's face appeared on the display once more as he spoke sharply.

"_Zeta wing, go."_

Then the wing in front of him moved off, taking less than five seconds to clear the hangar. It left a ripple of heat in the air behind it as it did so, however. And as soon as the fighters was out of the bay, he noticed that it rippled again as holographic projectors converted its exterior into looking completely black, matching the surrounding space it was in. Daniel tensed a bit. It was their turn now.

"_Alpha wing, you have clearance. Good luck out there, pilots."_

That was all Daniel needed to hear as he opened up on the AG generators and pulled the fighter off the flight deck. With a single nod to Asther in the other fighter, he put the engines to full and then exited the flight deck in one smooth motion. As soon as he was pass the force field, he switched on the stealth systems, and his fighter promptly disappeared from view – as did that of Ashter's. Behind him, as Skier's and Moray's fighters exited the bays, they too disappeared from view. Daniel knew that it was really just an illusion – checking the sensor display, he could still see and make out their low signatures. The treaty with the Romulans banned full cloaking systems based on the similar design as theirs. But Starfleet had gotten around this by just using different stealth technologies, as well as regular signal reduction techniques taken to the extreme. When applied to capital ships, it was useless as the signatures were too large...but when used on small fighters with only a single crew member and no life-support systems, they became almost completely invisible to sensors – almost as if they were cloaked, but not quiet. How effective they really were would be proven by this mission.

Daniel switched the right side display to show the rear camera, and then watched as the other two fighters shimmered and disappeared as well. He could see a distorted image of the rear of the _Persistence_ across where they should be, meaning that the cameras were working. Nodding to himself, he switched the display back and then opened tight-beam comms line just to the fighters around him. It was low enough that it was nearly impossible to detect to sensors, unless you were maybe a hundred kilometers or so away.

"All right Alpha wing, we're all clear. Now uploading coordinates into your Nav. systems, get ready for warp in twenty seconds."

With that, Daniel keyed in his authorization codes, and the computer picked up, sending the coordinates for an edge of the Xevenya system near its last planet – Xevenya XII. A gas giant, the planet was significantly large, and the radiation it emitted served to hide anything within it. According to the list of sites to investigate that Bishota had given Daniel, this was to be the first. Unlike the larger ships, the fighters could warp in-system far, far more accurately, so getting there wasn't much of a problem. However, communications back with the _Persistence_ would be. To minimize the risk of exposure, the fighters had been given specific windows at which point they would burst-transmit their data back to the _Persistence_ and make contact with flight command, before moving onto the next spot. Checking the timer, Daniel noted that it was at least another hour to their next window. Until then, none of the wings that were sent out would attempt to communicate, save for emergencies.

Daniel's thoughts were side-tracked, however, when Skier's face appeared on the display screen.

"_Roger that sir. Warp drives ready. About time we got to action."_

The screen flickered, and Ashter's face came on this time, her head moving from side to side as she checked the displays around her.

"_Cut the chatter, Dead man. Command can hear our communications broadcasts when we're this close, you know."_

It then changed back as Skier replied.

"_Relax – I doubt they can hear us. Besides, even if they did, what are they going to do? Its not like we're speaking classified stuff over this channel, you know."_

Daniel sighed to himself. Command might not do much, but _he_ sure as hell would. He knew Skier was only joking around…but they were about to head into a possible combat situation, and this was no time for Jokes. He opened the channel and let it be known.

"Damnit, Skier! Command might not do much to you, but I sure as hell will once we get back. Now shut your trap and get ready – warp is in five seconds…"

With that, Daniel re-checked the co-ordinates and then nodded.

"…Four…"

He rechecked his stealth and the weapons systems. All was in order, much to his satisfaction.

"…three…"

Next was the passive sensors; again, everything was showing up fine. He could see the faint silhouette of the _Persistence_ behind him on the display, as well as the background subspace fields. All was stable, and the space was clear as needed. His wing only showed on the 3d holographic 'radar' display in front of him.

"…two…"

Daniel took a breath and closed his eyes. Internally, he said a slight prayer, hoping that they wouldn't find anything on this mission. As eager as they had been for action…finding the Jolly Roger was the last thing he wanted today…not because it would be dangerous, but because of the memories that kept on trying to bring their way back into his consciousness. Memories of the dreams and nightmares he had last night…of a subspace vortex, and the metallic laughter of that insane man.

"…one…"

And yet as Daniel opened his eyes and reached for the warp controls…his mind wandered slightly as he remembered the words of that man, the one that had tormented him so much. He questioned this reality as he entered his authorization codes. Had he really woken up from that dream? Or had this – the briefing, the checks, the launch – everything, been just a dream? Would he now go to warp…and then just end up waking up in his bed? Or would the man come again and haunt him in this dream-reality?

Another terrifying thought struck him…one that shook him to the core and made his blood run cold. What if the dream…what if it was the other way around? What if…instead of being a dream…what he had gone through had been so _real_?

Daniel then snapped himself out of it as the countdown rolled to zero.

_It was a dream…nothing more. Damnit…I'm getting to analytical over this. I need to calm down._

Yet, even as he sighed and spoke up, Bosch's words still rang through his head. Closing his eyes, Daniel muttered just one word before pressing the controls that would send the fighters to their destinations.

"..._warp._"

And with that, the fighters surged into warp, leaving behind the permeated subspace echoes of their warp cores as the only trace of them ever having being there.


	5. Chapter 4: Hidden Terror

**_Chapter 4:_**

_**Hidden Terror**_

**_6th December 2378_**

_**Mission Time Counter: 1 minutes, 30 seconds**_

**_Orbit, Xevenya XII Gas Giant _**

If there was one thing Xevenya was best known for, it was the fact that there really wasn't anything of value or interest in the system at all. At the fringes of Federation space, the only notable thing was the fact that it was the closest system to Villaires, and the fact that the colony here had a reputation for being peaceful and somewhat isolated. This lack of interest had made both Villaires and Xevenya a major spot for Starfleet's weapons and alternative propulsions testing program – but that had all been shut down several years ago, after the incident with the ill-fated _U.S.S. Redemption_.

Other than the infamous incident with the ship, Xevenya was notable for just one other thing: the gas giant that was known to most as Xevenya XII. Around the same size as Saturn, the gas giant held an impressive array of rings in its orbit. Unlike Saturn, however, the planet was a red and purple color as the gases involved were of a completely different nature altogether. What was most interesting about the giant, however, were the storms that raged throughout the planet. Often larger than entire planets put together, these super-storms seemed to defy the laws of physics and fluid dynamics almost completely – almost as if an invisible hand were guiding them along from the inside. Many of the Federation's scientists had come about to witness the storms and study them – but to no avail. Every attempt at explanation and every theory had failed when the storms churned into divergent paths.

The followed no set pattern, not predictable course – indeed, everything about them seemed to operate completely in reverse to the laws of thermodynamics. Low pressure spots would automatically move to high pressure ones and increase the pressure there – and then all of a sudden a super storm capable of ripping a small moon to shreds would then take place, moving from one pole to the other in the span of days. Yet, despite this, the giant would remain remarkably intact despite the fact that the gases were moving at speed that could easily allow it to reach escape velocity from the rest of the planet.

The only thing actually predictable about the planet itself was its gravitational field which, thankfully remained steady enough not to put throw off the courses of the fighters that had just warped into it. The fighters warping in wasn't visible, however – the holographic emitters on the outside were efficient enough to even cover the elongated appearance of the fighters as they exited warp – a miracle which Ashter was somewhat thankful for as the sensors came online along with the other systems. Everything had gone dark in the cockpit as they had moved into low warp; the engines having taken most of the power. But now that they were back on impulse, everything came up as normal as they assumed orbit of the giant just outside of it's giant rings. Ashter sighed to herself as the passive array picked up and then accepted the narrow-beam computer link from Daniel.

"_Alpha 2, what's your status?_

She had been fighting alongside this wing for sometime now, and yet she still couldn't understand much about them…but then that was probably because of the fact that she didn't bother to speak to them much.

_But then they'll just ask you about Bajor and why you left._ Ashter thought to herself as she just shook her head. She didn't like talking about her past…about the memories that she had tried to suppress till now. Even though she was relatively young, and had led a sheltered life compared to most other Bajorans, Ashter had still suffered in other ways...ways that were too many to count and too painful to remember. The constant nightmares about the past…the horrors of the person that had tortured her mind so long ago still forced her to see the counselor once in a while – a task that she hated with a vehemence. She didn't like Betazoids and the way they tried to constantly poke into your brain and read your thoughts. Not only was it invasive, but uncomfortable as well.

"_Glare! Quit daydreaming and report!"_

Daniel's voice immediately shook Ashter out of her reverie as she hit the comm. Line and spoke up, her tone calm and even – as if she had been busy checking something rather than actually thinking away.

"Alpha 2 here – my sensors show zilch. Nothing on the EM bands or subspace detectors either."

Internally, she cursed herself. How could she have let herself get distracted so much? It was shameful not only from the perspective of a Starfleet officer, but as the second-in-command of the wing too. Not to mention the fact that she had somewhat prided her ability to keep a watch out for the rest of them. She organized her thoughts and focused on the task at hand. Considering the nature of what they were up against…well, she really _didn't _want to be caught off guard right now.

"_About time you replied. For a second we thought Dead Man's disease was contagious."_

Daniel's face appeared on the display once more, and although Ashter couldn't see much past the mask, his smile was clearly visible as it shone through his eyes. Ashter just glared back at him, and the smile immediately vanished as Daniel cleared his throat. Skier interrupted the rather awkward moment however, as his face appeared on the display and spoke up.

"_Hey, that's not funny you know!"_

Ashter sighed as Daniel replied to the kid with a slight chuckle.

"_Hey, you EARNED that one, Skier. Come on, let's get back to patrol. Communications window with command is in ten minutes."_

Then Daniel's face went off. Ashter checked the settings on autopilot before activating it. The computer would fly the craft on its standard formation from here on out, and would notify her if something was out of the norm. Sighing again, Ashter looked to her right, at the gas giant and the storms that raged on its surface. She reached for the control yoke and then pushed it a bit to the right, rolling the fighter in the same direction for a few degrees, before stopping it. The view from up here was fantastic, to say the least. Storms churned and raged as they raced across the surface of the giant – covering hundreds of kilometers in mere seconds. Sometimes a storm would pass near a larger one, and the edges of their clouds would connect. These edges would then connect and start spiraling off into a different direction from either two; forming another smaller storm.

It was a fantastic sight – and all of it took place in the matter of less than thirty seconds. This defiance of physics…of all the known laws of science…it was unnerving, in a sense. It was almost as if this gas giant was challenging those who observed it; challenging them into finding the hidden pattern that guided it along.

Or was it something else entirely? Could this gas giant be a question, rather than a challenge? Or was it an example instead?

_But what kind of question is it…or an example of what, for that matter?_ Ashter asked herself as she looked at it. She then shook the thought out of her head. She was just a pilot – not a scientist. Such matters were better left to those that specialized in dealing with them. For now, though, the only significant fact about the gas giant to her was the interference it was causing with her sensors.

Then something on the sensor display caught Ashter's attention. From the looks of it, Moray had transmitted a narrow beam signal to her computer, which now prompted her to either accept or reject it. Ashter mulled over the decision for a second. Moray rarely spoke, unless it was necessary, or to address the stares of those around him. Still…the fact that he was now contacting her – and from the looks of it, _just_ her – meant that it must have been _really_ necessary. She accepted the signal, and his face appeared on the display.

"Is there anything I can help you with, Moray?" Ashter asked, somewhat curious as to what he had to say. Internally, she hoped that he hadn't noticed her delayed reaction earlier.

"_I ask you that same question, Lt. Ashter…I sense that you are…troubled. Is everything all right?"_

Asther sighed as her hopes were dashed to the ground.

_By the prophets…as if human curiosity wasn't bad enough!_ Asther thought to herself. She was about to glare at the giant eel when she realized it would be useless – Moray _always_ won the staring contests, regardless of how hard or dangerous the stare might be. Instead, she took the best alternative in this scenario: lie through her teeth.

"I'm fine, thank you for asking. Now, is there anything else?"

She replied curtly, her tone calm and even while the ridges on her nose wrinkled a bit as she frowned.

"_Yes…you don't lie as well as the humans do…so now may I have a truthful reply?"_

Ashter uttered an oath as she looked at the display. This time she _really_ shot him a glare that would've caused any human to flinch – but which did absolutely nothing to the Sandgrade as he stared back with his lidless eyes.

_Damnit! Don't tell me that bastard has Telepathy to go with his telekinesis!"_

Asther thought for a second, before considering carefully how to reply. Moray wasn't going to give up easily without an answer…yet, she didn't want to give him one either. So she then tried the next best thing after lying: Evasion. She couldn't help but consider his motives suspect in this scenario.

She looked away, adjusting one of the controls on the autopilot as she spoke.

"Give me one good reason why I should tell you anything. I have the right to privacy, you know – not to mention the rank with which to enforce it."

Moray just looked at her for a second, before he replied, slowly.

"_You are my wing mate – and more importantly, the second in command. I have learned that if any of a group's leaders are distracted by internal conflicts, then they are doomed to watch those under them perish. You may not like my invasiveness…but I have watched you, Ashter – you are usually not as distracted unless there is something bothering you. Would you rather not get help with dealing with it now, as opposed to having to fight it in the heat of battle?"_

Ashter just looked at the view screen and as the Sandgrate looked back. For a long second, she just stared at it, her mind in turmoil. On one hand, she just wanted to use her rank and dismiss Moray. However, another part of her mind had to admit that the Sandgrate was right…

_Too fucking right! Damn that bastard! DAMN him! Does he think that a hundred years of experience gives him the right to tell me about getting help?_

Ashter then caught herself and sighed, looking away.

…_by the prophets…who am I kidding? Of course it does._

She looked back at Moray and was about to reply when Moray's face disappeared off the screen, and Daniel appeared. From his tone, he was obviously annoyed.

"_Glare, Moray – I can pick up your narrow beams on my passive sensors. You two planning a mutiny back there that I should know about? If not I'd suggest you keep the chatter to a minimum. It's not like these are toll free you know."_

_Kid's got a good sense of timing._ Ashter breathed a sigh of relief. At least now she didn't have to tell Moray anything. Her troubles would remain with her for now. As Moray replied however, her hopes were dashed to the ground.

"_Understood sir. However, I believe there might be something that Ashter might want to share with the rest of us."_

Ashter came very close to groaning as Moray replied.

_Why the hell cant he just give up on the matter?_ she thought, shooting him a poisonous glare that was strong enough that it made the Eel flinch a bit. She sighed and was about to curse and rail at Moray when Skier's face appeared on the screen.

"_err…sorry to interrupt, sir, but did subspace readings just spike for anyone else around a second ago?"_

Skier's face disappeared, to be replaced with Daniel's. There was a excited look in his eyes and tone as he spoke up.

"_My sensors show nothing Alpha 3. Alpha wing, come to a full halt. Can anyone else confirm those readings?"_

Ashter gave a short sigh of relief, and a prayer of thanks to the prophets. Someone seemed to be looking out for her today. She checked her sensors, and found that the computer had recorded no changes. At the same time, she adjusted the speed controls to match the other fighter's, all of which now slowed to a halt. Double-checking one more time to be sure, she spoke up, sending her own recordings to Daniel as well.

"That's a negative, sir. My subspace sensors show nothing."

"_My computer shows no recorded anomalies since we arrived."_

Moray replied just after Ashter did. There was a look in his eye that sent a shiver down Ashter's spine, however. The message he sent over was clear, though: this wasn't over…yet.

_What the hell is that Eel's problem anyway? Its not like we go around asking for HIS past._ She thought to herself, somewhat pissed off at all of this. Still, they had a potential situation now, and she couldn't afford to be distracted.

"_Now that's odd. Whatever that anomaly was, it seems heavily localized. There doesn't appear to be any ships in the vicinity, so I'm going to do a narrow band sensor-sweep of the coordinates, stand by._

Ashter watched her sensor displays as they suddenly lit up, showing the active sensor cone that originated from where Daniel's fighter was. Normally, using active sensors was dangerous in any stealth mission, but with it focused as a cone, the ranges at which they could be detected were actually very low, allowing their use when there were no enemy ships in the nearby vicinity. She watched as the data feed came in, showing Daniel's sensor readings.

"_Now this is interesting – subspace readings confirmed. It's not just a spike - we've got a trail here! From the looks of it, whoever it was either had a very, very messy subspace sensor array or we've found our target."_

Moray was the first one to react to this new piece of information.

"_From the sensor readings, it appears they have gone to the gas giant below. Should we report this to command?"_

"_Negative. Our communications window is still five minutes away. The trail looks like it might dissipate by then, though – especially in the gas giant's atmosphere. I'm deploying a message probe with all this information now. It'll burst-transmit to command once the window hits."_

"_What's the plan then, sir? Are we going to follow it down?"_

Skier interjected, his tone one of confusion…and could Ashter sense a bit of fear underneath that? Daniel then replied in a somewhat jovial tone.

"_What's the problem Dead man? Scared of a little gas?"_

"_No sir. More like those storms. They don't look friendly at all."_

"_Maybe so, but we don't have a choice. Alpha wing, switch power from the stealth systems to your Structural Integrity Fields – we'll need the extra strength against the pressure. Form up on me, and lets head down."_

Ashter didn't question the order, instead she did as asked and diverted the power as required. The computer asked for her confirmation to deactivate the stealth systems. She just acknowledged it, however. Around her, Ashter saw the holographic systems on the other ships deactivate, and they shimmered to life to her left. Daniel's fighter did a partial roll to the right, before smoothly diving towards the planet below. Ashter pushed the stick forward, following suit and bringing her fighter around. The holographic display showed both Skier and Moray following suit next to and behind her respectively. An air of seriousness took hold as the fighter wing now descended towards the broiling storms below. Ashter adjusted the HUD controls a bit, and a spray of particles suddenly appeared in front of her. The now lit-up trail descended straight towards the giant in front of them…right into one of the seemingly calmer regions of the surface.

She banked to the right a bit as a message probe left the rear launcher of Daniel's fighter, zooming past her as it then moved to maintain orbit around the planet. It then disappeared from her sensors as its own stealth systems came into play, hiding until the time was right for it to transmit to Command.

It was than that she focused on the gas giant itself. The spot they were headed to was somewhat clear of storms, with the nearest being several thousand kilometers away. But considering the unpredictable speed of the storms, it wasn't much of a margin. Even in the 'calm' areas, however, wind speeds and pressures were enormous.

"_50,000 Kilometers to the gas giant's upper layer. ETA is 15 seconds. Watch the rings Alpha wing – I don't think I'd be able to survive the embarrassment of having someone taken out by a rogue rock!"_

Ashter smiled internally at Daniel's joke, but didn't let it show. Instead, she manipulated the thrusters a bit and raised her relative altitude to the rings – which now passed below her. The sea of multi-colored ice and rocks moved in their orbits, uncaring as the small wing of fighters streaked above them. They varied in size, starting from the fine myst of particles that were only visible with sensors, to gigantic rocks that dwarfed even the _Persistence._ They glittered in the sun's reflecting, casting a distinctive blue glare off some of her displays. Ashter considered adjusting the tint, but then dismissed it as the glare passed. Instead, she adjusted the enhanced display of the particle trail to show a dark blue-black color, which would be more visible against the bright red and white gasses of the planet.

She watched as the gas giant grew in size, filling up the visible portion of the space outside the cockpit. Soon, she could no longer see the stars around the giant, or the sky for that matter.

"_14,000 Kilometers. 6 seconds. Stand by for turbulence – those storms on the right are getting a bit too close for comfort."_

Daniel spoke up as they left the rings behind. Ashter looked to her right and caught what Daniel was talking about – one of the massive storms was moving just off their direction. It looked like it would miss, but at the same time it would be coming significantly close.

For the next several seconds, Ashter just watched as the gas giant's edge came closer – the point that the exterior of the ship was now almost completely covered in the trace elements of the atmosphere. Switching one of the displays to the rear camera, she watched as the view of space began to get clouded, and then eventually fade away to nothing but vortex upon vortex in the clouds. It was then that the fighter suddenly started to shake and rattle. Ashter frowned and immediately switched back to the status screen. Her systems were in the green, but pressure was steadily increasing the further down they went. She deactivated the alerts and sirens that rung out as the rattling became worse. The nose of the ship began to drift left, and away from the particle trail they were chasing.

"_Shit! This Turbulence is heavy. Alpha wing, report status. Is everyone all right back there?"_

Looking up, Ashter realized she had lost sight of Daniel's fighter in the fog already – despite the sensor panel telling her that he was not 4 kilometers ahead of her own fighter!

_Looks like this is going to be instruments only._

"Alpha 2 here; all systems are green, and SIF is holding steady at 95 for me."

"_Alpha 3 here, all green. Man, I can't see shit in this fog! I've got you on sensors, Sir, but I can't get a visual on your craft."_

Skier replied – but the visual line on the display had significant amounts of static on it. She was about to point this out, when Moray replied first.

"_Signal quality is degrading severely. I recommend we close up our formation to maintain the strength, and keep visual contact."_

"_Agreed. Alpha wing, close up to 100 meters distance and pick up the pace."_

The fighters moved through the fog. Ahead of her and to the left, Daniel's craft slowed down, moving back on the sensors. Ashter banked her own fighter to the left and slowed down as well. Less than a second later, Daniel's fighter broke the edge of the cloud as vortexes of gas formed up behind the wings and body of the _Night Watcher._ To her left, she could see Skier's craft break through the fog as well, and no doubt behind her Moray's would be doing the same as well.

_Looks like this should be easy enough._

Ashter noticed that the trail seemed to be a bit…off, and was about to commend on it when, suddenly, an alarm went off on her right. The entire cockpit then turned red as she struggled to identify what exactly had gone wrong. When she caught a look at the problem, and the cause of the problem, the only thing Ashter could do was think _Oh god no._

Then the fighter suddenly _jerked_ to the left; the throttle controls slipping out of her hands for a moment, before she caught it again. All the fighters rocked and tumbled as a massive gust of wind blew through the atmosphere, catching them all off guard and scattering them. The display next to her flickered as static-ridden images of the others appeared along with similarly static-ridden voices. Daniel's was the first one she heard.

"_What in…name o…"_

Ashter didn't respond, however, and instead attempted to clear the line and stabilize her fighter. She was still drifting and being blown away by the storm front – as were they all. But unless she caught control, she would crash into one of the others.

"_Ma…y! …yday! SI…fa.ling…dang……low!"_

This time the transmission was from Skier. Ashter again ignored it. She almost had control! _Come on you bloody scrap-heap._ She cheered internally as the controls once again began to respond, and the lines cleared.

"_Secondary storm front inbound! BRACE FOR IMPACT!"_

Moray's voice rang out clear as day Ashter struggled to bring her fighter's nose to face the new storm front. She switched on the rear camera to check on Skier, and was somewhat relieved to find that it was still intact. The force of the impact had blown Skier a significant distance away, however, and his fighter was only barely visible as it slowly moved to face the new wave front. However, what was most concerning was the fact that it was _right behind her._ If the front hit now…

"Alpha 2, move your fighter! Get out of the way before – "

But it was too late. Ashter didn't even get the chance to finish the sentence before what felt like a wall hit her fighter, sending it tumbling backwards end over end. It flipped once, and then twice so that she could now clearly Skier's fighter as the storm hurtled her straight into it. Ashter brought her hands up to cover her face as she screamed. Her fighter streaked across space and then smashed right into Skier's dead-on at speeds in excess of several hundred kilometers per hour.

Ashter didn't feel the impact, though…in fact…she didn't seem to feel _anything._ She blinked, and removed the hands in front of her face. Looking around, Ashter realized she wasn't in the fighter anymore.

_Am I dead?_ She thought to herself, as she looked at the surroundings. She was clearly nowhere near space, either – which was then confirmed by the bright sun that now hung directly above her in the sky. She was in some sort of city…but one that seemed eerily familiar. Her immediate surroundings consisted of an alley between what seemed like two very large and very old buildings. They seemed to be made out of sort of brick and cement combination, while a large fence was present to her rear. There was only one exit in and out of the alley. Moving towards one of the walls, feeling the surface and examining it for any signs or clues as to where she was. Strangely…this place seemed to have resided in her memory…

Was she really dead? The fighter…Skier…what had happened to him? Was _he_ dead too?

_Hardly._

A voice rang out from near the entrance of the alley. Ashter instantly whirled about to face it…but saw nothing. It was clear and empty. Frowning, Ashter cautiously took a step forwards as she spoke up.

"Who are you? Where am I?"

_Don't you remember?_

The voice spoke again. This time, a wind seemed to pick up from the front of the alley, and a piece of paper blew in from somewhere. Ashter's hand reached out and grabbed it as it flew past. Bringing it up to her face, she realized it was actually a pamphlet…one written entirely in Bajoran. Frowning, Ashter read it. As she did so, her face slowly began to change to an expression of shock and horror.

_This cant be happening…by the prophets…_ Bajor…how had she reached _Bajor_ of all places? It was clear across the quadrant, last she remembered. And that voice…why did it feel so…familiar?

_You still don't recognize me? Perhaps you need a closer look…_

The voice spoke up again – and this time there was something behind it. Although Ashter couldn't hear it, she could distinctively feel that someone, somewhere was laughing…laughing at _her_. A shadow passed across her as a figure suddenly appearaed at the end of the Alley. It was shrouded mostly in darkness…but Ashter could make out some kind of uniform. The figure was clearly not Cardassian – the size was off too much for that. It seemed primarily human…a small figure at that. It seemed to be wearing some sort of hat, one with a very strange symbol on it that resembled a reverse 'Z' of the Federation standard Alphabet.

Ashter took a step back. She was unsure who the hell it was – yet at the same time it seemed familiar…so eerily familiar.

"Who are you?"

She said, gritting her teeth. Now Ashter knew where exactly she was along with _when._ This was the time when she had been on Bajor…the times of a troubled youth, and a ruthless occupation. She knew who the voice was, though, and where it belonged in her memory – but she asked it anyway. Although she had heard it before…she had never known _who_ it belonged to. The voice seemed to sigh as it then replied, slowly and calmly.

_Sometimes…not even I know. Some call me a hero, a savior come to rescue my people. Others call be a butcher of innocents, while my namesake from centuries before would have called me the captain of his ships of fools. In the end…what I am called matters not._

"And why not?"

The figure seemed to smile and just turned around. Hands behind it's back, he moved away from her, into the suddenly bright light behind him. His form disappeared in the light, Ashter could hear him whisper and speak to her.

_Because that is the way things must be._

Ashter blinked and took a step back as the light suddenly brightened around her, and her senses faded once again.A sharp pain ran through her neck and head as she opened her eyes – only to see her left arm and hand driven through one of the broken displays. Ashter winced in pain as she pulled the hand back and examined it. The injuries were only superficial, and the suit's seals were still intact so she ignored them for the moment.

_what did I just see?_ she thought to herself, remembering the strange man… the alley. _Must be getting delusional…_ she thought to herself before shaking it off and focusing on the present. Glancing at the working display screen, she grimaced as the systems came online.

This was bad, _very_ bad. Her SIF was at 40 and slowly dropping as the pressure gauge next to it climbed up at a proportional speed. Engines were offline for now, but the systems were showing that they were self-reset and would come online in 20 seconds.

_We might not have 20 seconds._

She quickly checked the sensors, and was somewhat relieved to find that the others were still alive. However, as the displays came online, she noted that Skier's fighter was the most damage – his SIF was at 30 and dropping even faster than hers. Moray was just behind her, and had already recovered. She watched on the radar as his fighter dived downwards, heading straight for Skier's.

"_Ugh…man, anyone get the serial number of the ship that just hit me? Alpha wing, report in." _

Daniel's voice rang out from the radio. His tone seemed a bit nasal, and as Ashter looked at his face on the screen, she could see that his mask was hanging off to one side, with a trickle of blood coming from his nose. From the looks of it, it must have gotten smashed from the console.

"Alpha 2 here – my SIF field is online and holding at 40 integrity. The gas giant is pulling us inwards and the pressure is rising steadily, though. Sir, you all right?'

Daniel just shook his head, and waved Ashter off.

"_I'll be fine. Give me a report – how much damage did we take?"_

"_SIF systems are weakening, sir. We've got maybe two or three minutes of time left in the gas giant's atmosphere before they fail. Alpha three does not seem responsive, however. I am moving towards his fighter and will proceed to dock if he does not wake up."_

"_This isn't good. Alpha 3, report in. Dead man, can you hear me?"_

There was no response from Skier's fighter. Moray didn't seem to be in any better shape, either. Although it was hard to see, Ashter could see that he had been severely injured – the blue aura of his environmental field now had a yellow tinge to it – one that she recognized to be Sandgrate blood. Ashter's attention was drawn elsewhere, however, as she scanned the particle stream to see if they still had the trail. Surprisingly, they did. As Ashter followed where the trail headed, however, her blood instantly froze.

"_Skier! Respond, Damnit!"_

Ashter looked at it for several seconds. She _had_ to be dreaming this up – just like the person she had seen not a minute ago. Checking the sensors and then double-checking them did nothing to allay her fears as she then continue to look at it. Finally, rather than let it go, she spoke up.

"Err…sir? I think you should take a look at this."

"_Hold on, Glare. Moray, dock with him now and get ready to pull up and out of here. Screw the trail – this environment is too hazardous for us to risk it any longer."_

"Sure as hell doesn't seem hazardous to _them,_ Sir."

"_What in heaven's name are you talki…My god…what is that?."_

Daniel's voice reduced to a harsh whisper as he looked out the front screen, somewhat dumbfounded.

The object that Daniel was referring to now hung in front of them. It was barely at the edges of their visual range, looking more akin to a shadow in the mist – or in this case, a monster in the fog. It was over a hundred meters in length, and dwarfed their fighters completely. Most of the ship consisted of a front drum-like extension, which was surrounded by six long, red spikes. Even through the purple and pink fog, Ashter could see a lattice of red, glowing lines on the drum itself as it slowly rotated. The rear was small, and consisted primarily of an engine complex, along with two stubby 'wing' like structures that were angled to both sides and the back. The hull here was mostly black, with a few patches of red that seemed to glow with a strange substance.

"Whatever it is, the computer doesn't recognize it. Hull material is unknown – but apparently theirs no shielding system whatsoever – not even a SIF. Whatever that is, we don't have the weaponry to take it on…or the shields to follow it, for that matter."

Ashter spoke up, studying the sensor readings on the unknown vessel. It was disturbing, to say the least. Not even the _Persistence _could survive much deeper than this. But here was something with absolutely no shields, not only surviving – but seemingly moving about freely as if the gas giant and its storms were hardly there at all. Her thoughts were interrupted, however, as Moray spoke up.

"_Sir, we have no time to delay. I have docked with Skier's fighter. I suggest we leave the gas giant post-haste…we will not survive under these conditions for much longer."_

"_Roger that. Are you getting any life signs from the fighter?"_

"_Affirmative. It appears that Skier is merely unconscious for the moment."_

"_Good. Alpha wing lets get the hell out of here. Ashter, you lead and I'll bring up the rear. We've got to report this back to command – I bet they'll be somewhat interested in seeing this."_

Ashter breathed a small sigh of relief as she angled her fighter up towards where the sensors said that space should be, and hit the engines. Looking to her side, she could see Moray's fighter docked upside down with Skier's as it sluggishly pulled both fighter craft along. After a few moments, however, the computer systems interfaced, and the engines on Skier's fighter moved in sync with Moray's, allowing them to maintain speed as they climbed up without further incident. Ashter was somewhat relieved when the pressure gauge began to descend, and her SIF field slowly strengthened itself.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they broke the exterior of the gas giant, coming into the full view of the stars and nebula that Ashter was so comfortable with. It was a sentiment that Daniel seemed to share as he spoke up, his tone equally a sigh of relief.

"_Man. Its good to finally see the stars again. I was getting sick of that pea soup."_

"_Gnngh…god…what the hell happened?"_

A new transmission suddenly came in, cutting of Daniel. Ashter let out another sigh of relief as she recognized it as coming from Skier, who was now looking around his cockpit. From the video feed, though, she could see that his cockpit was pretty banged up. Like Daniel, there seemed to be a trickle of blood running down his head and nose. The impact must have been real hard to override the internal dampers enough to cause such serious injuries. It was nothing short of a miracle they were all alive, much less still able to fly.

"_Welcome back to the world of the living, Dead man. You good enough to fly? I think Moray's getting somewhat fed up of carrying you on his back."_

"_God…my head feels like it's been run over by a truck…I think I should be able to manage, though. Let me take a painkiller from the medkit first, though."_

"_Acknowledged. I'm going to establish contact with command. With luck, this mission will be over soon enough once we tell them about the informa-"_

Suddenly, Moray's voice rang out over the system as he shouted in alarm. At the exact same time, Ashter's sensor systems rang out, going into alert and catching her attention. Immediately, her stealth systems activated on their own accord, and the general transmissions shifted to narrow beam as well.

"_NEGATIVE. We have hostile vessel inbound from the Gas Giant's orbital terminus."_

"_Jesus Christ is that…is that the Jolly Roger? Alpha wing, switch stealth systems to on now, engines off, float dead in the water! Maintain radio silence – even narrow band communications – until I say so! We can't let that ship detect us while we're like this!"_

Sure as sin, the ship in question now rounded the Gas giant, coming out of the other side of its orbit, where it had probably been hiding till now. Ashter wasted no time in complying with Daniel's orders, switching the engines completely off and cutting off communications with the rest of the group. The lights went off around her as displays and systems shut off, going into the lowest power mode that was available to them. Breathing slowly, Ashter offered a small prayer to the prophets as she watched the ship approached; praying that her very first mission would not be her last one as well.

However, even as she looked at the Nebula-class warship, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of fear as she saw the painted images of the skull and crossbones across the hull, and the small flag with the exact same figure on the top. This was, for all intents and purposes, a ship of the damned. Now it was here and right on top of them, and there was no place to run and no place to hide.

Ashter had a strange, sinking feeling that her prayers would not be answered today.


	6. Chapter 5: Panic Situation

_**Chapter 5:**_

_**Panic Situation**_

**_6th December 2378_**

_**Mission Time Counter: 5 Minutes 48 Seconds**_

_**Orbit, Xevenya XII Gas Giant **_

_Great...as if my day couldn't get any worse._ Ensign First Class Mitchell Skier grumbled to himself as he looked on at the large nebula-class starship that hung right in front of his fighter. The mere sight of the ship sent shivers up and down his spine...especially since he had heard of what it was capable of and of what it had done to date. There was a reason this ship was the scourge to most of the Alpha Quadrant; especially after it more than proved capable of devastating _fleets_ of smaller vessels in the Andreas incident. Rumors were abound that the _Jolly Roger_ had also single-handedly taken down both Klingon and Romulan vessels – up to and including War Birds. The bounties both empires had put in the ship were significant, to say the least; but had probably lead to the death of many a well-armed bounty hunter. There were, of course, rumors flying about that the _Jolly Roger_ had also taken on a Borg Tactical Cube on the edge of Romulan space…and won the battle in _seconds_.

And now they were pretty much up against this ship in nothing but stealth craft. Not even decently armed or armored fighters…but bloody _stealth_ craft. Skier would kill to have something, anything - be it a bomber or a fighter – that was actually capable of doing some damage in this situation.

_Why not wish for a Borg Tactical Cube while I'm at it? Or some Q's assistance, for that matter. _He sighed; somewhat resigned to this. He had never been one for sneaking around or stealth, for that matter. Of course, he had been forced to learn and adapt once he had joined the Silver Scythes…but that didn't mean he had to like it one bit. He still would have preferred to join RT's crew; but their flight complements were pretty full as it is, and while he loved flying bombers, he really wasn't as good at it as the _Mad Bombers_ were.

There was little to do but fret at the situation right now and look at the starship as it floated in front of them. The shape and colors of the ship was disturbing, to say the least; especially the odd cylindrical device where the starship's normal module should have been. The red, eerie glow it emitted seemed…familiar, somehow. Skier couldn't exactly place _where_ he had seen it, though. Then something hit him.

_Why is it just sitting there?/i_ Skier thought to himself.

The ship hadn't made a move towards them; nor had it really done anything. It was just…sitting there; as if waiting for something to happen. The others seemed to have noticed this as well. Daniel's face appeared on the display to his right as a narrow-beam transmission came in. The ship didn't react – either it didn't notice, or didn't care. In either case, it was nothing short of a blessing, to say the least.

"_This is good. Looks like the stealth systems are working – either it hasn't noticed us, or it doesn't care. In either case, we have an edge here."_

Another signal came through – this time surprisingly from Ashter.

"_Sir…that ship is in between us and the Persistance. There's no way we can get across without being noticed."_

"_If we engage our warp drives and leave now, we will have reached half-way to the Persistance before it can react, however."_ Moray interjected, his face filling up the screen. Skier made a mental note to thank him later. But for now, though, his attention caught onto Daniel's reply, stomach churning as he listened to it.

"_Negative, pilots. We're not leaving yet. We still have a mission to complete – we need a scan of that ship before we go. Command needs to know where it's heading next, otherwise this mission will have been a waste."_

"Begging your pardon, sir, but how are we going to accomplish that? It's not like our stealth fields are full-on cloaking devices!"

Skier replied. He was pissed. Yes, the mission was priority, but then they needed the ability to finish it, too! Still, he sighed slightly

"_We don't need to get too close to get a passive scan, Dead Man - our stealth fields should hold up if we keep enough of a distance.. Glare, you've had the most stealth experience here - think you can sneak in enough to get a decent scan?"_

The line remained static-ridden though, as no reply came in. Skier's vision glanced over the squadron display – Ashter's craft was still intact and working functionally.

_Why isn't she replying?_

He looked over the other displays, running a quick scan of the area around them. That was when he noticed something that caught his attention.

"_Glare! Do you read?"_

Skier looked at it in disbelief. He glanced at the display, then up through the cockpit screen at the _Jolley Roger _and then back at the display again.

Daniel's voice called out again – obviously annoyed at the lack of response. Finally, the channel clicked

"_Ermm…I don't think stealth is much of a factor right now, Sir._." Ashter's reply came back. The reason why she said this was made apparently clear as Skier looked at the giant Nebula class starship before them. Despite the black paint and dark color scheme, the one thing notable about the starship that made it stand out was the large number of lights, coming from the many windows and rooms inside the ship. Yet, as Skier watched, these lights suddenly died down one by one as the entire ship went dark. Within the span of three seconds, the only lights remaining on the dark hull was that of the bridge…and the red glow of the device on its star drive section.

"_What in hell is happening here? Scanners are showing the ship is shutting down completely."  
_

Daniel was right, the ship _was_ shutting down. Checking his monitors, Skier saw that this was true – the _Jolly Roger_'s warp cores seemed to be shutting down completely.

_Odd…why would they just park in orbit and shut down like that?_

"Could they be shutting down for repairs and refueling? Not like there's anyone around here other than us anyway." Skier spoke up,

"_Unsure. Still, we've got a mission to com- what the HELL?"_

Daniel's reply was cut off as a burst of static filled not only all the monitors around Skier, but his helmet as well, causing him to cry out in alarm as the sound was loud enough that it nearly deafened his ears. As it – and the pain - passed, though, he could feel a slight ache in his ears, and the displays came back online. Skier shook his head, holding the suit's helmet in his hands and trying to get the ringing out of his ears.

"_What the hell was _that_?"_

"_Sensors identify it as a subspace pulse, originating from the _Jolly Roger/_. It appears to be significantly powered, as the initial pulse overloaded all the sensors and baseline systems."_

Moray replied, his face appearing on the screen. Skier noted that the translator had put the voice in as a lot more distressed than before.

_Must've really hurt the bugger._ Skier thought to himself. Still, he focused on the situation.

"_A subspace pulse? How the hell did it release a pulse when shut down? Where did it originate from?"_

Even as Ashjter replied, Skier's blood ran cold. It wasn't what Ashter said, though that frightened him – no...it was what he saw on the sensors that scared the shit out of him. _How is this possible?_ Skier thought to himself. These readings…he tried to make sense of it. The subspace pattern around the _Jolly Roger_ was moving; changing. It's warp reactor was offline, as was it's fusion drives…yet, there was an enormous shift of energy …it was almost as if the ship was drawing energy from _subspace_ itself.

But this was not the most disturbing, however. What _was_ disturbing was the eerie feeling of Déjà vu that ran up and down his spine just now. He had seen these readings before…_somewhere._ He searched his mind, his memories for some indication as to where he had seen this before, but none came to mind immediately.

The radio crackled as Ashter spoke up – the effects of the subspace field must have been interfering with communications. Still, even through the static, Skier could feel the apprehension in her voice as she too saw the sensor readings.

"_Sir! The ship is powering up…Prophets, save me…are…are these readings right?"_

"_Affirmative…these power levels. Good god, I've never seen anything like them – that ship's outputting nearly five warp cores worth of energy right there – and it's taking it all from subspace, from the looks of it. Wait – hold on…anyone else see that? Something's happening to the ship's subspace module!"_

The ship remained dark; the only lighted portions being the bridge and the subspace device. Yet, as Skier watched in horror, the blood-red glow began to slowly become brighter. White particles seemed to form around it as well, adding to the glow on the top of the saucer section. They streamed into the device – almost as if they were being sucked in.

"_Sir! The power is being fed to the subspace device – the output readings are coming in now. I believe the device is going to discharge all the energy soon!" _

Skier ignored Moray's reply. Instead, he just kept staring at the device. That glow…why…why was it so familiar? It was then a small white glow began to form just in front of the device. Yet, as Skier watched the glow began to grow rapidly till it seemed to consume the entire front of the device's dish, and clearly illuminated the top of the saucer section.

And then…it fired.

The beam (laser? Phaser? Skier couldn't recognize which one) was bright red, lancing out from the dish and down into the gas giant below. It parted through the clouds with ease; cutting into the gas giant like a hot knife through butter. He glanced at the sensors, and his face went white as he saw the power output.

"oh…_shit._" Skier muttered to himself, shaking his head and looking at the reading again. This wasn't right. This _couldn't_ be right. How could a ship conceivably output such power? But it was then that Skier realized the more important question:

_What was it shooting at?_

Why would anyone conceivably shoot into a gas giant? As powerful as the beam was, it still wasn't enough to cut through the giant planet below them.

"_What…the hell is that?" _Ashter whispered over the comms.

"_More importantly, what the hell is Markhavan shooting at?" _Daniel piped in, his thoughts echoing Skier's own.

The answer, however, came back in the form of multiple sensor alarms that suddenly rang out all over him.

_What the hell?_

Skier jumped in alarm, his hands moving to check the sensor display. However, his thoughts were interrupted as Moray's voice came over the channel as he shouted out the alarm.

"**_INCOMING! Brace for impact!"_**

There was no time to move, no time to even react, save for Skier to raise his arms before the massive beam of red light penetrated the upper layer of the gas giant's atmosphere and found its place right in the center of their fighter formation. The white core of the laser nearly overwhelmed him, had the filters not come on at the last instant.

Still, it was powerful enough that the shields automatically came online to protect the fighter craft, lest they be roasted to death. Still, it was nearly useless as they only absorbed part of the energy. A blast of heat moved through the confined cockpit as the beam vaporized a significant part of his port wing, all the while the shockwave pushing his fighter away from the others.

Multiple alarms rang in the cockpit as Skier struggled to regain control despite still being half-blinded by the flash. He droned them out, trying to concentrate.

_Come on Skier…this is no time for a panic situation. **Think.** _He looked at the displays – all of them were blank, save for one. He set it to show the ship's status and condition. As the reports came in, however, the situation looked grim. His port wing was gone almost completely, while half the weapon support systems were fried. Most external sensor equipments had been burned out, while hull integrity was dangerously low. They had been very lucky to have been at the distance from each other. Any less, and there was a good enough chance that he would have probably been roasted by now.

_First priority: Stabilize._

Grabbing the control stick, Skier pulled back on it. It responded sluggishly however, and he could barely manage to get it to stop. But stop it did after several seconds of struggling.

_Second Priority: Check on the others._

He tried to activate the passive or backup sensors, but to no avail. Cursing, Skier tried pinging the active sensors – and found that they were working just fine.

_Not like we're still in stealth anyway._ He thought to himself, activating them. Immediately, the display changed to show the status of the other ships. To his relief, the others had fared significantly better – either their shields had come up earlier, or they had been farther away. But what caused him to take pause, however, was that the sight of the _Jolly Roger_. It was now active, with all lights running…and slowly but surely turning towards _them._

_Oh…fuck. This is not good…not good at all._ Skier thought, his mind rushing into panic despite his best attempts to contain it. He was about to hit the comm. channel and contact Daniel, but was cut off as a signal came in.

"_**Damnit all to hell!** That blast fried all the stealth systems! Alpha wing, abort mission, repeat, abort the mission! The _Jolly Roger_'s on an intercept route to our position - we need to get the fuck out here!"_

"_That's a negative sir, warp drives are down – we have no way out!"_

Skier checked the warp drive…and then began to panic.

_Oh God…we're dead, we're all dead!_

Fear ran through his mind. With no way to escape, and heavily damaged fighter craft, there was little hope of leaving this engagement alive…and there was no way to know if whatever was down there in the gas giant was going to fire again and wipe them out. But then…it was either _it_ or the ship that was now turning towards them.

_Why do I always get the bad missions? _He asked himself. Unfortunately, the only reply he got was silence.


	7. Chapter 6: Unfriendly Fire

_**Chapter 6:**_

_**Unfriendly Fire **_

**_6th December 2378_**

**_Mission Time Counter: 8 Minutes 02 Seconds_**

_**Orbit, Xevenya XII Gas Giant **_

For a long, seemingly eternal moment, Lt. Junior Grade Daniel 'deadshot' Mobius could not have been more terrified in his entire life.

Never once had he come so close to death before. Yes, he had been in some life-threatening situation, but there had always been some way out, some safety device to help him along. In a nightmare, there was still the chance of waking up…but here and now? There was nothing out in space right now save for him, his wing mates, and the _Jolly Roger._

All his training, all his years in Starfleet and indeed, even as an officer, utterly and completely failed to placate or seem to stop his mind from erupting into a full-on panic.

_We're all gonna die!_ The thought raced through his mind as he checked the sensors with one hand, while the other hand beat on the console in a frantic attempt to get the ship to go into warp – only to get an error message thrown right back at him each and every time. The error message only infuriated him some more as he slammed a fist into the console, nearly smashing it.

"_Sir! We need orders? What do we do?!_ Skier's voice came over the radio, interrupting Daniel's thoughts. Skier's voice was low, but contained a nervous streak within it that caught his attention. Daniel looked at the console, and his hands. Then he looked back outside the window, at the _Jolly Roger_ before shaking his head.

_What the bleeding hell am I doing?_.

And then the moment passed. He remembered his training, the years of preparation for just this moment…the one where more lives than his were on stake, and when they relied on him for orders and a way out to safety.

_Get a grip, damnit! I'm better than this…_ He thought, calming his mind slightly and focusing on the situation at hand. Activating the radio, Daniel replied to his wingmates as he moved the control stick to the side, slowly banking the fighter to starboard, and then away from the Battlecruiser that was headed straight for them.

"Alpha wing, dis-engage now. Move away from the _Jolly Roger ­_– I'm signaling command for backup."

"_Glad to, sir!"_ Came the simple reply as the rest of the fighters turned to form up on his wing. As Daniel reached to unlock the communications protocols, however, he noticed Skier's fighter to his left. The craft appeared heavily damaged from his vantage point, with the port side wing missing almost completely. From the looks of it, it was a miracle it was still intact – much less moving as well as it was. Still, Daniel kept it as a note for later, and focused on the problem at hand.

The radio crackled with static, indicating the line was open. Without hesitation, Daniel immediately spoke into it, his voice hurried.

"This is Alpha 1, 23rd _Silver Scythes. _Command, do you copy?"

The line remained filled with static as no reply came through. Odd…the _Persistence_ should have picked up on the signal by now. Frowning, Daniel tapped the console, before speaking again, this time a bit louder.

"Command! Do you copy?! We're in big trouble out here!"

This time, however, the static seemed to clear, and command's voice came through the channel. The monitor flickered as the face of one of the flight commander came up.

"_Affirmative Alpha wing, we copy you – what's the situation?"_

The tone was low and even; a distinct contrast to Daniel's own distressed voice. Daniel glanced back at the _Jolly Roger_ before replying. It was definitely in pursuit of them – it was only a matter of time till it got close enough to lock on and fire torpedoes.

"You'll never believe this, Command! The _Jolly Roger_ engaged an unknown hostile hidden within the gas giant – the return fire of which fried our stealth systems and warp drives. Theirs no way we can engage the battle cruiser on our own – we need backup _now_!"

Command seemed to be incredibly surprised at this, however, and the officer nearly gawked. Still, somehow he retained his composure as he spoke, somewhat more quickly this time.

"_Say again, Pilot? The _Jolly Roger?_"_

"Affirmative, command. We're sending sensor feeds now. We need backup as soon as possible!"

For a moment, the officer seemed to consider something, and then looked away from the screen – nodding to someone on his right. He looked back at screen and nodded at Daniel.

"_Acknowledged. ETA for the Mad Bombers is 45 seconds, and the Gargant will be there in sixty. Try and complete the mission if you can, pilots, but staying alive is your first priority! Support vessels are en-route as well."_

_Easier said than done._

Daniel quelched the thought and simply nodded. He was about to reply, when a loud, blaring alarm came out over his monitors. His eyes went wide as he frantically searched for the afterburner button on his control stick.

"**Oh shit! **Alpha wing, we've been locked on – evasive maneuvers! _Evasive maneuvers and counter-measures **now**!"_

With that, Daniel slammed both control sticks forward, hitting the afterburner at the same time; forcing him back into the seat as inertial dampeners struggled to compensate for the sudden acceleration. The sleek fighter jumped into top speed as the afterburners engaged, shooting forward like a bullet fired from a gun. Behind it, several glowing points of light emerged from the torpedo launchers located on the _Jolly Roger_'s stardrive section. Four pinpoints emerged in total; each one first accelerating away from the ship, and then arcing towards the fleeing stealth craft that streaked off in different directions.

But the torpedoes were equally fast – if not faster. They accelerated and were beginning to catch up with the stealth craft, all of which were now maneuvering desperately to get away from the torpedoes. They dived, rolled and otherwise just strafed as much as they could. As the torpedoes closed in, however, each craft let loose a string of bright silver counter-measures, which lit up the space behind them. The torpedoes swerved off course; moving to meet the spoof instead.

Daniel grunted as the explosion sent a blast of heat and energy through the shields and hull, shaking the craft and forcing him to momentarily loose control. The fighter swerved and went off-course for a brief moment, causing it to come dangerously close to Skier's fighter. He managed to recover in time, though, moving out of the way and stabilizing the craft.

Daniel grimaced as he looked back at the sensors, however, and noticed that the _Jolly Roger_ was launching more torpedoes at them.

_Sure as hell hope those re-enforcements get here soon!_ Daniel thought to himself, gritting his teeth and getting ready to hit the afterburners and counter-measures once more.

**_6th December 2378_**

**_Mission Time Counter: 8 Minutes 55 seconds_**

_**Villaires Subspace Node **_

The twelve Ragnarok bombers of the _Mad Bombers_ floated around the Villaires subspace node; waiting patiently for the call to come in from command that they were being called into action, or the next shift was coming in to replace them. In either case, Lt. Commander Ne'Zr's 'Red Target' waited patiently in the dark cockpit of the large bomber craft.

She was used to this kind of waiting far more than her human colleagues. Indeed, she had waited for longer periods of time – especially when raising her young, back on the home-world. Memories came back of the times then, and the Korak simply smiled internally as she allowed herself to revel in them for the moment. It was a luxury she found usually eased the waiting and quelched the nervousness. However, as with most luxuries, it didn't last. The console lit up as command's voice came in, interrupting her thoughts almost immediately.

RT reacted instantaneously, her attention focusing on the command officer as he spoke, his voice somewhat hurried, yet mostly even.

"_RT, this is command. Alpha wing has been engaged by the primary target near the Xevenya XII Gas giant and has called in for assistance. Co-ordinates are being fed to your computers now – warp is in 15 seconds!"_

RT noted the warp drive control begin it's automatic countdown to warp. Internally RT's predatory drive heightened as the chance for combat presented itself to her. She could barely contain the excitement in her voice as she spoke, somehow managing to keep a calm and even tone.

"All right everyone – Alpha wing has called in for assistance. Let's move it, people!"

RT cut off the line then, partially because she didn't need to give any more info, and partially because the countdown timer was fast approaching zero. It was at three seconds now before the warp drives came online.

She craned her insect-like face to the right hand side, looking for the display with the sensor and status information. She looked at the sensor displays, making sure that the bombs were all working properly. The _Rangarok _bombers could carry a total of 14 large bombs, each significantly more powerful than the advanced quantum torpedoes used by Starfleet, and each one specifically designed just to fit on their bombers. However, in this trip they were carrying only 6 in their massive bomb bays to either side of the cockpit. The remaining payload space had been filled with specialized shield-disrupting torpedoes. An experimental design, they, like everything else in the wing were being field-tested here. They would especially come in useful, however, considering that the main objective was to capture the _Jolly Roger_, not destroy it.

It was now two seconds to warp.

It took little more than a momentary glance to confirm that all the bombs and warheads were fully operational, while yet another glance confirmed that the bomber itself was in peak condition. She did a slight barrel roll to check how fast the bomber could turn. It managed to finish it within half a second, which was good, considering that there was now exactly one second left to warp.

RT smiled, however as she saw the last display: it was showing a rear view of the bomber, over viewing the rest of the squad…which was now _also_ doing a barrel roll, and they were doing it as a single unit, too! A surge of pride filled her as she did another barrel roll in reply; waving off the rest of the wing just before they went into warp.

_Command's gonna get pissed…but who really cares?_ RT thought to herself, before focusing on the viewscreen ahead of her. The countdown had reached zero, and warp drive had been initiated. She could hear and feel the thrumming of the engines behind the cockpit as they powered up, and then engaged.

_Here we go._

And then the entire group shot off into warp, leaving nothing in their wake.

**_6th December 2378_**

_**Mission Time Counter: 9 Minutes 5 seconds**_

**_Merchant Navy Vessel _Gargant**

**_En-route from outside Xevenya System _**

The _Gargant_ wasn't a particularly fast ship, or a sleek-looking one, for that matter. But then, most Ore miners weren't originally meant to be either fast or sleek. What it lacked in speed and good looks, it made up for in sheer durability and firepower. The long, boxy body of the _Gargant_ was actually far, far tougher than it looked, while the many empty mining laser turrets were now occupied by Pulse Phaser Turrets. Each of the small, dual-barreled turrets were rather weak individually, but collectively the 24 overall turrets represented enough firepower to allow the Merchant Navy Vessel to go up against an upgraded _Excelsior_ class starship and come out the victor. It's second anti-matter core was dedicated only to power the shielding grid all over the ship, giving it a toughness that easily rivaled any military ship's power, while the armor plating provided a secondary layer of protection that was a problem in and of itself.

With the aid of several smaller vessels, the _Gargant_ would be an easy match for a _Galaxy_ class starship as well, taking enough of a punishment to give its compatriots a good shot at taking larger ships down. What was most interesting, however was the fact that this sort of a vessel was actually far cheaper than it's Starfleet counterparts – not to mention needed far fewer crew. In fact, it required so little crew, that the bridge compliment was just 2 people – the Captain and the First Mate, one of whom was now anticipating the conflict that was expected in just a few moments time.

"ETA to the gas giant?"

Captain Holland asked as he stared at the view-screen. A rather young man in his early 20s, he was rather tall and slender – bordering on the verge of unhealthy, almost. But the muscles on his arms and upper body seemed to belie this somewhat. His blonde hair and bright blue eyes didn't seem to match up to heavily tanned skin, unshaven face and beard. But it was what was underneath these mis-matching features that allowed the human captain to be where he was now.

Holland had gotten here mostly because of his tenacity, and battle instincts. Not exactly a seasoned veteran, he was still experienced enough in combat to prove his worth, making his way up the ladder till he was now Captain of one of the strongest civilian ships in the local sector.

And it was this instinct…this desire almost, that now drove him to the edge of his seat in anticipation. War and combat was something that captain thirsted for, ever since his first combat sorties during the Dominion war. He couldn't explain it, save that it was an instinctual need that Holland needed…one that somewhat disturbed First Mate Chaplain.

Holland glanced behind him, to the small platform above where the Bolian Officer was sitting. It was a cramped bridge, consisting mostly of the command chair where he was strapped in, the First Mate's chair and the viewscreen ahead of them. The only other features were a small path for the crew to walk, and a set of doors to either side; one leading to the turbolift and another to the lavatory.

Chaplain looked at him, a sign of worry in his eyes. It was a sign that Holland knew all too well – Chaplain had never liked combat. Never would, for that matter. It was something that he knew and understood very well after years of working with the man – after all, not everyone was a fighter, and although this _was_ the Merchant Navy, it sure as hell wasn't Starfleet. One of the reasons he was still around though, was that he didn't let that dislike get to him at all.

"ETA is 20 seconds, sir. The _Mad Bombers_ are already on their way, and long range scanners have confirmed the presence of the _Jolly Roger_. There appears to be some sort of communications jamming going on, though – Command apparently wont be able to contact us while we are in the combat zone. Alpha wing has been engaged, and are calling for backup or retrieval, if it's possible."

The Bolian replied, his tone calm and even, betraying none of the fear that his eyes did. Holland nodded before pressing one of the buttons on the arm of the command chair, opening a direct line to Engineering. "Engineering! Are all systems ready down there?"

The comm. Link simply blasted a wave of static for a moment before quieting down and a voice broke through. In the background Holland could hear the loud _thum_ of the twin warp cores running at full power. He sometimes wondered how the Engineering crew could stand it – but then he remembered that for the most part, they were a bunch of loons, so it wasn't that far from the imagination.

"_Aye sir! Just 'ive us the signal and you'll 'ave ya bloody shields!"_

The voice was somewhat broken and high-pitched as Commander Roanoke spoke. Holland groaned internally as he struggled to understand the strange Russian-scottish-Vulcan accent mix. It was a bastard of an accent to speak – let alone understand. How the man had managed to pass through the company interviews had been a mystery to Captain Holland, but the fact was he still stuck with the man…and he did good work, at the least – that alone justified keeping him on the payroll, if nothing else. Shaking his head, he glanced at Chaplain.

"Consider this your signal, Commander. I want those shields up and I want them to _stay_ up, understand? We enter combat in 10 seconds! Holland out."

Before the engineer could reply, Holland simply shut down the channel – the less he listened to that accent, the better. Looking up at the screen, Holland quickly changed it to the tactical display and overlay. The screen blinked out for a moment, before coming back on and providing a top-down display of the entire solar system. It zoomed into the gas giant they were now heading to. Several icons appeared; showing the current situation in a somewhat simple manner.

There was only one red triangle here, and Holland didn't need to read the text next to it to know that it was the _Jolly Roger_. It was chasing four green squares that was right next to it – most probably Alpha wing. Holland noted that the fighter's movements were erratic and going in all directions. He frowned for a moment. What the hell were they doing out there?

_Evasive Manuevers._ The thought struck him, and the frown disappeared. The _Jolly Roger_ was persuing them at a high speed, and probably locking onto the little fighters with torpedoes and Phasers. Evasive maneuvers was probably the only chance of survival for the fighters in this case. At the bottom of the screen a blue triangle was highlighted, closing in on the red one. Holland recognized this as his own ship, the _Gargant_. At the same time, over a dozen other squares – this time green – were coming in towards the _Jolly Roger_ from the opposite direction.

_Those should be RT's squadron_ Holland thought to himself, remembering the bombers and the rather…strange leader they had.

_Pfft...Bombers…where did Starfleet ever get the idea of using them? Far cheaper if they just made their ships like the Merchant Navy does._

Holland had never really believed in the virtue of smaller being better. To him, the bigger the ship, the more potential firepower it could carry. And firepower was really all they needed, really. Still, he'd reserved his judgement till he saw the things in action. After all…if they worked, then it was a good thing for Starfleet, right? Either way, they would probably find out around 10 seconds from now.

"Go to Red Alert."

There was no reply from Chaplain. Instead, the lights dimmed around the bridge and turned red. Sirens rang out all over the ship as Holland checked the timer. 12 seconds to go till they got contact. He glanced up at the screen – the _Mad Bombers_ had already dropped out of warp, and were now moving towards the pirate cruiser. He counted down the seconds till they came out of warp. As he did so, a signal came through from the _Mad Bombers_ as they made contact with Alpha wing.

"_Mad Bombers are on the scene and we have the Jolly Roger on our scopes! Command sends their regards, Alpha wing - what's your status?"_

RT's voice rang out. For a moment, Holland gave a silent prayer of thanks to whomever decided the Universal translator would have a neutral accent. He listened on however, as Alpha wing's leader replied.

"_Good to see some finally see some friendly faces! Our warp drives have been hit and we've taken serious damage. We cant last much longer out here unless we get some cover!"_

They were now five seconds out. Glancing towards the display on the arm of the chair, he saw that the ship was in fighting condition and ready to go. On the screen, he saw as the green squares that were the Bombers pick up speed and move towards the _Jolly Roger_

"_Understood. Support 1 is en-route to your position for repairs - try and get as far away from the cruiser as you can. Gamma Wing, acquire target lock and begin your bombing runs! First Salvo shield disruptors, second salvo torpedoes – let's see if we can't get this sucker in our first run!"_

The main screen split in half almost as soon as they dropped out of half. On the left was the same tactical display, but the right side now showed the cruiser hanging in front and above them. Holland smiled internally – finally, the fight could begin. He didn't even notice as his hand went straight to the intercom, opening a line straight to the gunnery control several decks below.

"Gunnery Control, lock onto the _Jolly Roger_ – I want an Alpha strike on my mark! We need those shields down _yesterday_! Chaplain, fire torpedoes at your discretion; aim for critical points one the shields are down – priority is to disable, not destroy."

They had come out in the most ideal position – attacking the ship from below, where it couldn't direct its subspace weapon as easily. _Time to rip you apart, ye beast._ Holland thought to himself, smiling internally. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as the time to fight had finally come.

The smile vanished, however, as he saw several strips light up all across the cruiser's hull as it came up to full power. He didn't even have time to shout a warning as, suddenly, the strips lit up and almost a dozen beams of light reached out towards the _Gargant_, raking across the shields and causing the entire ship to shake violently. At the same time, a blast of torpedoes lanced out from the turret underneath the saucer section; impacting in a violent explosion all across the _Gargant_'s weakened shields.

At the same time, on the top of the vessel, several more arrays and turrets lit up as they tracked the incoming bombers, opening fire at them. Phaser beams streaked across the night sky, making contact with the heavy bombers; while the smaller turrets opened fire with projectiles that flew in-between the formation and detonating, lighting up the darkness of space with massive explosions that disrupted the bombers' flight paths.

"_Watch the flak, people! Release your payloads only when your 1000 clicks in – the bombs wont make it past this screen!"_

RT's voice rang through the comm. Channel. The tactical display updated a yellow circle around the group of bombers – which were now slowly and steadily making their way to the Jolly Roger. The edge of the circle was maybe 20? No, 25 seconds out. The bomber's formation had been significantly disrupted by the flak, though, and they were now flying somewhat spread out. As it is, two or three of the squares were forced to break off due to critical damage; warping out towards the _Persistance_ almost immediately.

They just needed hold out a little bit longer. Holland was somewhat surprised as a green square broke off from Alpha wing; moving towards the _Jolly Roger_ at the same time. It then vanished as a signal came through.

"_This is Alpha 2. My stealth systems are back online! I'm going to try and take a scan of the cruiser's subspace system. Try and keep it distracted if you can!"_

_Keep them distracted? It's not like we're sitting and twiddling our thumbs here._

Holland thought to himself, somewhat sarcastically. Still, even as the Gargant shook around him and threatened to come apart, Holland couldn't help but frown at this…Flak guns? Why would the _Jolly Roger_ need flak guns? Nobody used them unless they were going against fighters and/or bombers – something which Starfleet had only recently moved to. It was almost as if Marhavan had been ready for them in advance, expecting them to be here…or had he prepared for another enemy? In either case, he filed it off for later. This was not something to be thinking of in a battle situation.

Thankfully, Holland had been strapped in, meaning he wasn't thrown off the seat or affected by the shaking much. He checked the status of the shields and cursed – that blast had nearly taken them down to 60. Not wasting anymore time, he shouted into the intercom.

"_Gunnery control, **open fire!! **Engineering cut power to the engines - give the shields everything we've got!"_

As one, the row of 12 turrets on the top of the Gargant's hull turned towards the _Jolly Roger_. They immediately opened fire; pulses of Phaser blasts streaking across space and impacting on the shields of the battle cruiser, unfortunately to little effect. The alpha strike had been mostly useless, despite focusing only on a single spot. The _Gargant_ was tough and strong…but the _Jolly Roger_ was simply tougher. A fact which it now proved as the Phasers opened fire again, raking the shields of the converted mining vessel once more.

Holland cursed as the ship shook again – but this time the shields held fast at 50 strength. For the first time in the course of the fight, however, he could feel his confidence beginning to waiver and doubt creeping into his mind. The battle had only begun, and already the _Gargant_ was suffering a major beating.

_Well, what did you expect? A cakewalk? There's a reason that ship's the most feared in the Alpha Quadrant you know."_

"Weapons are having minimal effect, sir. The _Jolly Roger's _shields are at 70 percent! At this rate, we'll loose our shields before they loose theirs!" Chaplain cried out from behind Holland as the ship suddenly _Jerked_ to the left as several torpedoes impacted across the shields, draining them further. This was followed by yet another blast of Phaser fire. However, this time the Phasers managed to penetrate the shields; arcing over the hull and turrets, leaving behind them a trail of burnt armor plating and debris that scattered off into space. It didn't last long, however, as the shields caught up and blocked the Phasers again.

The ship shook violently as Holland struggled to remain his seat even with the harness. He coughed as smoke filled the bridge from burnt –out circuit breakers and consoles. The din of alarms and fire emergency sirens was deafening, but quickly died out as he shut them down. Behind him, Chaplain recovered and read out the damage report.

"Multiple hull breaches on Deck 3 through 6, we've lost turrets 4, 8 and 12 and casualties are being reported on all decks! Repair crews dispatched to the breaches, but Armor integrity has suffered a major hit – we're at 60"

"Fire torpedoes! Don't hold back anything!" Holland replied back, slamming his fist into the arm of the chair. He was _not_ going to loose this battle, regardless of what the cost.

The _Gargant_ opened fire with its own volley of torpedoes; the bright red projectiles streaking across the gap between both starships and then exploding brightly against the pirate cruiser a second later. But it was a double-edged dagger as the splash damage washed over the _Gargant's_ own shields, weakening them in the process.

"Damnit! This isn't working! _Mad Bombers!,_ we could use some help out here!"

Holland cursed. He watched as the edge of the circle _finally_ reached the _Jolly Roger_. RT's reply came over the comm. Channel.

"_Affirmative, we have lock.Launching first salvo now!"_

Of the twelve bombers that had come to attack the _Jolly Roger_ four had been forced to turn back due to massive damage. The eight bombers that were left, however, pressed on in their attack. Some of them trailed a long plume of smoke and fuel behind them due to battle damage, while others were still relatively intact. All had scorch marks across their hulls from multiple Phaser blasts, however.

Still, as they got into range the slats covering their bomb bays slid open, revealing the deadly payloads concealed within. Blue disruptor torpedoes burst out from the bays as powerful impulse engines pushed them towards the target they were locked on to: the _Jolly Roger._ Even more rows of slats opened up, however, as the Bombers released the second salvo. This time, the familiar bright orange color of Photon torpedoes followed close behind the disruptors. Each bomber had fired almost half a dozen disruptor missiles, and 4 torpedoes, bringing the total number of projectiles heading towards the pirate cruiser at 80.

"_Bombs away! Gamma wing pull back, reload and prepare for a second run!"_

The camera view on the screen shifted as it zoomed into the bombs moving towards the _Jolly Roger_. They weren't moving very fast, and he could see the countdown on the screen was showing 10 seconds to impact. It was then he noticed that something had chanced: the ship was no longer shaking. Frowning, Holland was about to say something when Chaplain spoke up, beating him to the point.

"Sir! The _Jolly Roger_ has ceased fire – I'm reading a massive subspace spike from the vessel! I looks like it may jump!"

"On screen!" Holland nodded. The screen promptly changed to a picture of the _Jolly Roger_. The ship was dark now save for it's shields – which were still taking fire from the _Gargant_'s turrets. It seemed like it was playing dead almost and if not for the fire, looked like how a very, very scary derelict normally would. However that image was shattered as a vortex began to form just off the ship's bow. At first, it was only a pinpoint of blue light that shimmered along the ring of the _Jolly Roger's _saucer section. But it rapidly grew in both size and volume; its center being nothing but a swirling blue and white mass of subspace.

It was beautiful. Holland couldn't help but stare at it in awe – the only thing that came close had been the wormhole at Bajor…but this…this was far more interesting, far more awe-inspiring to see. But at the same time, it seemed…_sinister_ in a way. Holland couldn't describe it…but somehow, as he stared into the vortex, he could feel something staring right _back_ at him – even though it was through the viewscreen.

"Amazing." Chaplain whispered from behind him, equally awed by the spectacle.

It was when that combat instincts kicked in, and Holland snapped out of it.

"The _Jolly Roger_ is escaping!! Alpha two, **_scan that ship!!_ **We need to know where the hell its escaping to!"

Holland shouted over the radio, cursing himself mentally – but it was already too late. On the screen, the pirate cruiser quickly accelerated, plunging the entire vessel into the maw of the subspace vortex. The vortex simply seemed to swallow the vessel whole as it disappeared inside. The captain could do little but watch in frustration as the Bombs Gamma wing launched arched upwards as they struggled to keep up with the fleeing vessel. However, the vortex closed up behind the _Jolly Roger, _disappearing in a bright flash of light. The bombs could do little but simply continue in space where the ship had been, searching for a target that wasn't there.

"DAMNIT!" Holland shouted, cursing at the top of his voice as he slammed his fist into the arm of his chair. He was angry; nay _pissed_. They had Markhavan in their grasp…and now he had escaped! Sure…they had been loosing. But still, Holland knew that he had had the upper hand, especially in the form of re-enforcements. He had believed, with all confidence that they could take it on and hold out long enough for the _Persistance_ to arrive.

_Damn that bastard!_

"Any chance we managed to get the exit point for that subspace jump? Maybe we can catch up to him."

There was no way in hell he could allow it to end like this – his thirst for blood and a good fight was insatiable, and his foe fleeing the scene of battle was most definitely _not_ going to stop him. He looked back at Chaplain, and realized that a similar frustration was playing across the Bolian's face.

"The computer might have a lock on the exit vector from the subspace data we managed to acquire. It is decoding the data now….done. Projected exit is on screen!"

Chaplain looked up towards the screen…and frowned. Holland followed his gaze…only to see the projected red triangle staying in same location as it was before on the tactical display.

_Strange…_

"Computer – zoom into the point of exit departure and rotate as necessary."

The display changed and rotated; showing the icons on a horizontal plane. The _Gargant _was in the middle, with the _Mad Bombers_ approaching on top and the fired bombs moving parallel to the Gargant's own course as they headed off harmlessly into space. However, it was what was _below_ the Gargant that caused Holland's eyes to go wide. He didn't have a chance to speak or say anything, however, as right side of the screen changed and the alarm sirens began to ring again.

The space below the _Gargant_ lit up as a new subspace vortex opened up right behind it. Emerging from this vortex, the _Jolly Roger_ now sat below the converted mining vessel, ready to attack at the weakened side of the shields with impunity.

But it did no such thing…instead, the _Jolly Roger_ simply sat there…as if waiting for something to happen. Holland wasn't going to let it just sit there, though.

"Damn! Engineering, get the engines back online! Divert power from forward shields to the rear and bottom quarters! We need to turn this bucket of bolts around! Gunnery control, open fire!"

Holland roared as he manipulated the controls and checked the status of the ship. This was not good…not good at all. At this rate, engines would be up only in around 30 seconds time – at which they would most likely be dead. The only alternative was to stick and fight…hopefully diverting power would help them last till the _Persistance_ arrived. The previous confidence suddenly seemed to falter as the truth of the situation dawned on him. Markhavan didn't have any intention to run…he was up to something here…but what could it be?

_Damn that Markhavan! Damn him to hell! _He couldn't help but thinking. His mind raged at this…how could this be happening? How could this be falling apart so quickly?

"Sir…" Chaplain whispered from above him.

"What is it Chaplain?!" Holland snapped out at the Bolian unintentionally.

"I think you should look at the screen…"

The captain glanced at the screen…and then suddenly, everything became clear.

"Oh…my…God."

The reason Markhavan had come back where he was now sitting was abruptly clear as the bombs the _Mad Bombers_ had launched re-acquired their locks on the targets. The computers had been made smart enough that they had prepared for such an eventuality that they would loose the target, and then re-acquire them again. However, what they had _not_ been prepared for till now – nobody had seemed to think of it – was the fact that their could be friendly ships in between them and the target when it reappeared.

But then nobody had expected it…nobody, that is, other than Markhavan – who was now sitting coolly below the _Gargant_ as the torpedoes raced to impact with his ship, uncaring if the mining vessel was standing between them. The bombs were close enough that Holland realized there was little time to do anything, really. As it is the computer was counting down the time to impact. There was no time to move the engines…no time to re-divert power back to the top-side shields…nor was there time to listen to the warning from Gamma wing, stating they couldn't shut down the warheads due to subspace jamming, or their constant, desperate urges for him to get the ship moving out of the way.

There was only time to do two things, actually and that was for Holland's life to flash before his eyes…and for him to utter the words in "Oh God…Oh god no." in indescribable terror.

And then they hit.

The first salvo of torpedoes hit across the weakened topside shields of the _Gargant_ flaring in bright explosions and blue shockwaves that washed over the entire ship. As the explosions died down however, the shields crackled and failed nearly instantly, exposing the vessel to further attack. This came in the form of the second salvo that neatly slammed into the _Gargant_.

In most normal circumstances, the armor plating all over the ship's hull would've protect it from such impacts, allowing a degree of survivability. However, these were hardly normal circumstances, and the prior bombardment of the _Jolly Roger_ had weakened these plates in many areas. Torpedoes ripped through the weakened areas, smashing the hull into bits, and then blasting debris into space as they exploded inside the decks.

As fate would have it, one of the torpedoes had enough energy and momentum behind it that it managed to smash not only through the armor, but five whole decks of crew quarters, corridors and even the mess hall before it came to rest firmly within the bridge itself. It happened so fast, that neither Holland nor Chaplain had a moment to realize it's existence before the torpedo exploded; causing a shockwave that rippled outwards and all throughout the ship. It reached engineering and, combined with the shockwave of other warheads exploding all over the hull, essentially ripped the warp core into two, leaking anti-matter directly into the unprotected matter that surrounded it.

The result of course, was a sudden change of state best described as 'horrific'. At one moment, the _Gargant_ was still relatively intact. The next, it had become nothing more than an expanding cloud of gas and light that was bright than the dim sun that shone several billion kilometers away. The wave of energy washed harmlessly over the shields of the _Jolly Roger_, which now accelerated forwards and jumped into a newly formed Subspace vortex directly ahead of it. It left behind it nothing, save for the dust, ashes and echoes of a ship once known as the Merchant Navy Vessel _Gargant._


End file.
